August 24, 2024 • 33 mins
Ever wondered what it takes to thrive in the publishing world? In this episode, we sit down with Charles, a seasoned writer and publisher, to explore the ins and outs of the industry. I kick things off with a story about how a quirky movie continually grows on me, setting the stage for a fun yet insightful conversation. My own journey into podcasting began after a brush with death during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led me to pursue my passions fearlessly. Charles shares his motivations for starting his publishing company, influenced by his mother's artistic challenges and his extensive experience in writing and ghostwriting.
Charles and I delve into the complexities of the book editing and publishing industry, likening it to hiring a contractor for home renovations. We discuss the importance of effective communication and clear expectations, sharing personal anecdotes about how rigid industry norms can stifle creativity. Charles explains how his company, Book Puma, fosters innovation through transparency and personalized feedback. We also touch on the hectic nature of managing multiple projects, including Charles’s experience running 11 Jimmy John's franchises, and how this influences our business and communication strategies. A standout practice we reveal is providing audio feedback to clients to bridge information gaps and promote growth.
The episode takes an intriguing turn as we navigate the delicate terrain of controversial writing. Our concierge service supports authors through every stage of their publishing journey, whether dealing with smaller government contracts or publishing children's books. We highlight the importance of well-written, thoughtful content when tackling sensitive topics, sharing examples of both successes and rejections in the industry. The importance of feedback and growth is underscored through examples from the music industry, illustrating the subjectivity of success and the power of perseverance in the publishing world. Tune in for a vibrant and inspiring conversation that champions the value of passion and resilience in the literary landscape.
https://www.Bookpumaedit.com
https://www.Bluehandlepublishing.com
if you enjoyed the show be sure to check out my info:
https://app.wingcard.io/ROB3SA64
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, hello everybody, how are you all doing
today?
So I had a wonderful chat withCharles.
We kind of just started theZoom call and we were just
chatting like old friends and Icouldn't find a proper place to
start the recording so I justkind of hit it halfway through
him explaining this one movie.
(00:20):
So that's where it's a littleout of context for the
introduction.
Other than that, where it's alittle out of context for the
introduction, other than that wego into a lot of information
really good.
Um, I want to talk to him inthe future about how he runs his
11 franchises franchisecompanies plus his publishing
and editing company.
(00:41):
Like how does he have themindset for that?
We were more just talking about, um, his publishing and editing
company specifically and, uh,other than that, it's a great
one.
If you're especially wanting tounderstand things about the
publishing industry, let usbegin somewhat slower, but kind
of funny it was.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It was awesome cool I had to watch it about two,
three times to get half thejokes.
Like I'll sometimes put movieson in the background I'm doing
work and the more I watched it,the funnier it got.
But I can understand why mostpeople were like what?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
is it?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
you either have to be kind of drunk, or so, uh, drunk
or high to kind of get thejokes or just not really paying
attention, like if I think ifyou sit there you're like all
right, let's get into this movie.
You're going to be like alittle disappointed.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
How'd you get into podcasting?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Why did I get into podcasting?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
So I got COVID back in 2020 when, whatever variant
came out, that was actuallykilling people, and I was having
a seizure on the floor and Iwas debating literally the day
before with a coworker.
I'm like, oh, I'm going to do apodcast.
Then it's like, oh, what aboutTwitter, mobs and this and that?
And he's like, just fucking, doit, you're small anyways, no
one cares about you, they're notgoing to get any clout trying
to kill you, and I think, sothat's where.
(02:07):
Then I had COVID on the floorseizing like a dog.
So once I blacked out for liketwo days and in that blackout I
remember saying to myself fuckthis, if I'm going to be getting
myself in trouble, it's forwhat I want.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So started once I was able to move right so that's
what started then.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
it was just easy for me to like talk to business guys
.
Like I found a website tomessage people.
I'm like hey, can you get on myshow?
And they're like, no, this isnot.
But all the business guys aredown totally and I just kind of
talked to all of them and that'show I just grew.
Now I talk to everyone.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
The crazy thing is, I mean people just like talking
about themselves.
Let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
You want to talk about yourself for 40 minutes.
Yes, Of course.
So what inspired you to do?
Your publishing company.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, a little bit of everything.
My mom, before she passed away,was digging into the arts.
She was an artist, um, and thenher health kind of took her
ability to do art.
I tried to get her to get to it.
She couldn't find center.
She was a painter and she hadhad strokes and nerve disorders
and I was like, man, that mightmake your art even better.
Come on, let's do this for themodern art trend now I wasn't
(03:26):
thinking of it from somebody whocould do things I would say
easily, but like certain thingscame from all the work she put
in, she could do it right.
And then now she was strugglingreally hard to do something
simple like how defeating thatwas.
I was more like, hey, we cansome money.
Yeah, watch my mom'sstrugglecom, you know.
And I had written two books inmy 20s and um threw them in a
(03:52):
shelf, I got in a and they justkind of floated around
everywhere I moved and rightbefore covid I had reached out
to this editor guy I'd done workwith for dang it, I'm sorry
about this.
Uh, come on, come on, there wego for an editor.
I ghost wrote blogs for yearsand for banks and all random
(04:19):
stuff.
I'm really good at just quickwrite, content writing.
And he really brutal.
Like I mean.
Mean, and I was like you knowwhat?
I got these books I'm gonnasend them to ben, who's really
brutal, because I trust that.
Like I know he'll be honest,because a lot of times you know
you're sending it out in theworld.
You're like I'm sure anyonewill take my money.
You know what I mean.
(04:39):
He's like oh, it's great.
Yeah, keep sending me more andas I started process I realized
how hard it was.
And I saw a couple agents wholiked my writing and they told
me they're like if you go to thebig five, they're going to make
you change the way you write.
Kind of the CBS television, ifyou're like an indie movie
(05:01):
producer, indie TV guy, but ifyou have a following from you
know, movie producer, indie tvguy, like, but if you have a
following from beingself-published, you'll, they're
not going to make you change it.
And I was like what do youconsider a fine?
Like, honestly, you're sellinglike a couple thousand books a
year.
That's a follow-up.
Like publishing is hard, likeokay.
So the more I looked into it Iwas like, well, how am I gonna
do all this work?
(05:21):
I might as well repeat it forother people.
Like I like logos, I'm a bigfan of logos, I can even get my
book Puma hat on my editingplatform.
And so I created a logo,created a company, and I
realized real fast that, like,if you're self-published you
can't really apply for a lot ofawards, but if you have a
publishing company you can look.
(05:43):
I quickly learned that justbeing an indie publisher, even
for myself, right, and like twopeople, I met my first two
authors this guy, andrew andJordan and Amarillo opened up a
lot of doors and what started asjust kind of this small project
for myself and maybe a coupleof local guys in Amarillo in
order to get traction for myselfand maybe a couple of local
(06:04):
guys in Amarillo in order to gettraction and then I met my now
vice president, madison, whomoved home during COVID from New
York.
She worked at WorkmanPublishing, one of the largest
publishers in New York, and thenmy editorial director, who
works for newspapers all overthe place.
He's actually now doing movies.
Ricky's amazing.
(06:24):
He went from being afraid to doa video on social media to
starring in Tyler like havingspeaking roles in Tyler Perry
movies.
His story is amazing.
That's cool.
And it just kind of became agroup of us just kind of coming
together and empowering eachother to just make good work and
kind of make mistakes together,kind of on my dime, but still,
(06:44):
you know.
And then we realized we neededmore than just the publishing
company, cause we're getting alot of bad manuscripts I don't
mean bad, like the story was bad.
For example, I had somebodyhand me a book they already self
published and in the first 10pages there was four different
fonts.
Like Ooh, yeah, that's not goodlike there's like there's bad,
(07:08):
and then there's like lazy, bad.
And then there's like did youforget to take your meds?
And I don't mean it, I meanlike do you have a handler like
like mental health's important?
And it's like did somebody tellyou to stop?
Like it's something like youcouldn't have, like hit select
all, like per your news, likenothing.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, put it all aerial or whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And I was like man, I am tired of just getting bad
work and we're finding peoplewho just don't realize how good
they are.
So we created a publishing andediting company alongside of it
and it's just kind of becometrying to solve problems little
by little by little, and we canonly publish so many people.
So the cool part about BookPumais we can help hundreds, if not
(07:50):
thousands, of people getpublished, whereas with Blue
Handle I can only publish fourto six people a year because
it's expensive.
We don't take money at BlueHandle.
I invest.
So I'll spend 50 to to 100grand a year investing in
authors.
Um to whether it's marketing,editing, you just salaries of
(08:11):
our employees, and if I makehalf that back, you know where.
Book puma helps us kind of keepthe lights on, but also helps us
kind of reinvest into a lot ofauthors.
We actually had a couple ofdifferent people recently do
some social media lives.
We're like, when you told mewhat, how affordable it was, I
was like how bad's the editinggoing to be?
(08:33):
It's like it's not.
We're just, we're trying tomake it affordable and not like,
you know, take your shirt offyour back.
We're trying to make, we'retrying to make.
We're trying to make it morecommunal based, but it's a
better way of, you know, figure,you know, pulling it off.
So and that's kind of how wegot into it.
It's just kind of been oneproject after another that's
(08:54):
cool.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, I want to say editing, because I've been
working on my different storiesand I've had a couple other
editors on the lowest I've seenfor pricing per word is like 4
cents and I'm like that soundscheap, but that's brutal and
some of them are saying like 6or 8 cents a word.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I have thousands on my books.
My first 6 books, I think Ispent like 20-30 thousand
dollars on editing.
We have monthly memberships atBook Puma as low as 40 bucks.
Someone's like what I'm likeyeah, we can turn in a couple
pages at a time.
We have monthly memberships atBook Puma as low as 40 bucks.
Someone's like what I'm likeyeah, we can turn in a couple
pages at a time, because a lotof times you get bad habits in
the beginning and you don'trealize it's a bad habit and
(09:35):
then now you have to fix that.
Had you caught it in the first10, 20 pages, you wouldn't have
done it the next 200.
You know what I mean.
So our theory behind that is iswell, imagine you could just
get a few pages like that.
Imagine you could get on thephone with somebody and just get
a little bit of coaching sothat you can minimize the damage
along the way and have somebodylike to work with.
(09:55):
And more and more people arelike, oh, this is a real thing,
it is, it's not a scam.
I swear I know there's so manyout there which is I.
I got I wouldn't say scammed,because that's how the industry
is I just it's brutal.
I always.
The best way to describe it isit's like hiring a contractor to
redo your bathroom.
They come over and then theygive you the plans and they mark
(10:17):
everything off.
And then they leave and theycharge you and you're like well,
I paid, I paid you foreverything, like, but it's your
bathroom, don't you want to fixit?
And you're like but you're theexpert, I gave you the money,
right, it's like.
I was like.
I remember one of the first biglike editing jobs we did.
I told the editor I was likehey, man, you need to do one
(10:40):
rough version, right, that hasjust all the edits, and then
you're going to need to do aclean version where you fix all
the edits.
They're like no, that's like.
Yeah, they're like do you knowhow hard that is?
And I said yes, I know exactlyhow hard that is.
It's a pain in the butt and notevery person who gets into
writing knows how to do thatnumber one or wants to do that,
(11:04):
knows how to do that number oneor wants to do that right.
And this lady quit.
She quit over it.
This is stupid.
Two months later we get a call.
She goes.
I called my last 10 clients.
Every single one wanted me todo that.
I am so sorry it was.
I was like, yeah, they're soused to being like well, this is
what we always do.
This is what we always do.
(11:25):
And I used to have this likechat on my Slack channel with my
editorial director, ricky, andit was the question was always
is this a real thing, or did MsAnderson tell you in the seventh
grade you have to do this?
He's like and he used to kindof get mad at me and over time
he's like I'm starting torealize how much stuff we do,
(11:48):
cause miss Anderson in theseventh grade told us we had to
do it.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So that's kind of where boom and blue handle came
from.
I mean, I've got my own booksout.
I've got four in the Neo Baggioseries, one in Marie Perdita,
which is a spinoff from NeilBaggio, one, golden Day, which
is a really good graduation booklike relationships and stuff,
kind of college, and then I'vegot three books I'm working on
(12:18):
right now.
On top of I run 11 Jimmy John'sfranchises that I own two kids.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I actually have a baseball practice.
I don't sleep much I was goingto say how are you sleeping?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I just kind of black out on occasion.
No, I mean I just go until thebattery gives up and then I
start all over again.
It's kind of how it is.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, that's wild.
So for um, what are the?
Have you gotten a lot of goodbooks like potentials for your
company from the editing?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
yeah, we actually got three of our current books that
are coming out, uh, thebeginning of 2025.
Um, we're all book to myclients um that we found early
and offer like.
One person told me like, oh,you're just doing this, you can
turn people away and give themediting.
I was like, oh, it's the app.
I was like it allows me tocherry pick good people before
they realize you're good.
She's like that's rude.
(13:20):
It's like I don't mean in arude way, I mean like we get a
lot of manuscripts sent to us.
So I mean, usually we tell themthis is what I can offer, feel
free.
And I'm like I don't want toresist anyone's ability to grow.
I just don't Right, I, I we'reup front with what we offer,
what we can do for them, and ifthis works for them and that's
(13:40):
what they want, because theylike how we are and how we
communicate them, cool.
But if not, hey man, we'll helpyou any way that we can.
And usually just the honesty iswhat most people love.
It's because even at work theright, my restaurants I just had
somebody reach out for anapplication.
I was like on monday I can'tguarantee a spot will be
available, but you can reach outon sunday.
And I was like I'm not gonna,you know, not tell you otherwise
(14:03):
.
I was like plus, this is how Ifeel about someone with your
history.
I was like you know, just, welike to communicate clearly, we
like to up front, we like to bekind of honest right out the
gate.
And they were like well, no,even if I don't get the job, I
still want to sit down and talkto you.
That's really refreshing.
Thank you, you're welcome.
That's just kind of how we tryto approach everything is.
One of my favorite phrases isfill the void with information,
(14:29):
not someone's imagination andprevious experience.
You don't know where they camefrom, what they know, what they
don't know.
So don't just assume, take atime and just communicate.
And that's one of the coolthings we do at Book Puma.
That most editors don't do, atleast I've seen, is when we send
back a project, we do an audionote.
So the editor will reread thewhole cover sheet in audio
(14:51):
format and send it with theproject.
The reason being is a lot of usinternalize feedback negative,
right, so you may read you'restruggling with commas, see this
all the time.
Uh, you've got to get past it.
But the editor might read hey,man, you're struggling with
commas, you'll get past it, wesee this all the time.
But the editor might read hey,man, you're struggling with
commas, you'll get past it.
We see this all the time.
(15:13):
There's a huge difference,right, so you may internalize it
as you suck.
But if the editor is tellingyou in this really calm,
reassuring tone, now all of asudden you're like, oh okay,
I'll get past it then and thoselittle things that maybe take an
extra five to 10 minutes forthe editor make, I think, all
(15:34):
the difference in the world forthe person receiving that
feedback.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's a big one, as I'velike.
I had an editor for a while formy podcast and at certain
points she started doing thesame thing, cause she would send
me a critique saying this isabsolutely terrible, like why
did you do it?
And I didn't hear her tone.
So I'm thinking, gee, thislady's a bitch and she sent me a
voice.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Could have been laughing the whole time.
Right like right yeah, no shewas.
This is terrible.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
What do you think you're doing?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
yeah, but we hear it is like you're horrible, you
should, you should quit now.
All right, I'll stop, like I'lldo it, and that's kind of why
we were trying to.
We're trying to break downthose, those, those walls.
Like even the guy we did ourone of our books for last year,
ray franz the heights he's the Ialways mess this up he's the
(16:25):
great nephew of al capone'sright hand man.
So the guy who no one knewessentially ran Al Capone's
whole operation.
He was like hidden from theworld and Al Capone did this on
purpose, so that if anythingever happened to Al Capone or
somebody, all the businesseswould still run and most of the
families would be taken care ofbecause no one knew who this guy
(16:47):
was.
So this guy, ray, has access toall this family history and
decided to write this awesomebook.
Um, but he had, he had tofictionalize it for safety
reasons and so he wrote it andwe were the only publisher who
(17:07):
said it's not done like youended it, but I feel like you
stopped it like five chaptersshort.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
When it got good.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
He's like well, it's really long and we're like our
job is to.
I was like, keep writing.
If it's super long, we'll turnit into two books.
You know, whatever We'll figureit out.
So we invested a year, almost ayear.
It's like nine months ofediting and coaching, of helping
him finish the book before weeven, like, got into the
(17:36):
re-editing of the book.
It almost became a two yearprocess and remember, he's like
that's the reason he had offersfrom bigger publishers but he's
like none of them were going towork with me.
They just wanted to slap myname on a book and sell it.
He's like I just didn't want torisk my story not being told
properly I guess well, that's abig one.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, that's a big one for one of my friends there
you go.
I'll see, because one of myfriends did that.
She she does a hybrid, so sheself-publishes a good chunk of
her books, but she has contractswith two of the big fives.
It took her a while to getthere and that's where she said
they just literally expect youto pay for everything up front.
(18:19):
And then they're like and youhave to market everything too.
They don't really other thanputting you on their little
email newsletter.
You have to figure out how toget the books to sell.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Even the big five.
I got to meet jt ellison a fewtimes.
She's become good friends withricky and uh, it was one of the
big things I took away the firsttime I met her.
She's like I took my first bigcheck, my book deal and bought a
pr company, spent every dollaron marketing and she's like
without it I wouldn't havegotten a second book deal.
(18:50):
And it's like people don'trealize how little most
publishers do for you other thandistribute.
They're just distributioncompanies.
That's all they are.
That is it.
They don't.
They're looking for ready-madeproducts, not only books.
They're looking for people whoknow how to market, who know how
to function.
Like who already have an incomeor they have like the world's
(19:12):
most amazing story you know whatI mean like they're already
going viral.
Otherwise they're like theywon't touch you in the 10-foot
pole and that's the hard part,yeah, so uh, what I was going to
say was um, a lot of the peopledon't realize the amount of
money that goes into and howmuch, how many books just don't
(19:32):
sell, right.
So for, like every bestselleryou see out there, which most a
bestseller is 10 000 copies aweek for four weeks.
That's what a bestseller is.
So, and even that, you can dothat and still not be a
bestseller.
There's lots of books that selltons of books but don't make
the bestseller list becausethey're not with the right
(19:52):
publisher, they don't fit into acertain genre they don't like.
So the New York timesbestselling list is actually a
very like closed off list.
It's all make-believe.
It's like USA today has theirown.
That's why you know you cansell a million books on Amazon
(20:14):
and not make the best selling.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's a weird, it's a really weird thing.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yes, now, that being said, the average book is sells
less than 100 copies a yearaverage.
This is a legit thing.
They do these numbers everycouple of years.
They double check, for Forevery million dollar seller
million books, you havethousands of authors that sell
less than 10 copies a year.
That's the realist.
(20:42):
That's them, including the bigfive.
They will.
They will sign author afterauthor after author that will
literally die like their.
They will, like their book willjust sit on a shelf for two
months and then end up in awarehouse and never get sold.
Yeah, right, it's always betterto self-publish or find an
(21:03):
indie, because then at least youhave some control.
Right, like right.
If it takes you five years, ittakes you five years.
I mean, malcolm gladwell talksabout it took him like six years
to get turning point off theground.
He literally like went aroundthe country talking about it
non-stop until it finally tookoff, like it wasn't an overnight
success, like yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So I'm curious for you, for your publishing company
are there any specifics orgenres that you're looking for,
Any topics that may be off thetable because it's just too
controversial?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I would say controversial topics are because
I'm the one investing money,right.
So, like, we'll work with you,like through Bookuma, which
we've had a couple of come to usthat are pretty controversial
I'm like not touching that witha 10-foot pole but we were able
to work with them, get them theright services they need through
our Bookuma platform.
We do like a concierge servicewhere it's not hybrid, where we
(22:02):
own it.
We literally will do everythingfor you, almost like if you've
ever hired a web developer,where they'll create like a
generic email address that youshare on Google.
Like you know Chad and Brad'spodcast, add Gmail.
You know what I mean.
Like and then we'll createeverything.
We'll literally go into anAmazon account.
We'll create everything.
We'll share it with you and getyou on Amazon, get you an
(22:25):
IngramSpark account, get you anISBN, get you everywhere you
need to be.
We'll get it all taken care of.
And when we're working withcontroversial people, um, we
have this concierge, not justwith any, but with any person.
We have a concierge service,but we will work with them and
we will set everything up sothat they will access themselves
(22:47):
and then, once we're done, theywe can wash our hands of it
like here's, here's your logins,here's everything.
Now we actually have twogovernment like smaller
government contracts that we'reworking with, like one's like a
vfw, like a small military umguy.
Him and his buddies puttogether this book and they
wanted us to help us, like keeptabs on it.
(23:08):
So like every month they keepus on this like small stipend.
I think we're charging 20 amonth like it's not much.
You just keep tabs on it, makesure there's no issues.
Like it's literally I even feelbad charging 20 a month.
They're like we gotta, we gottacharge you something.
You I'm like okay, so we go in,make selling.
It's on all the platforms.
(23:28):
We answer emails from Ingram orAmazon, you know like hey, your
book has an error in thiscorner, that kind of stuff,
right.
And so we have those kind ofservices that we originally
weren't trying to do but so manypeople have asked for them.
We just started doing it.
Fair enough, and that has beenkind of one of my more favorite
(23:52):
ones because it's just kind ofbeen organic.
We actually kept fighting itand not wanting to do it, but so
many people kept asking for it,we were like all right, I guess
we're going to do it, and so ifyou, let's say, you're
self-published or you want to beself-published but you're like
I don't even know where to start, we could literally sit down
with you and go all right,here's the list of things to do.
If you're really busy andyou're like I don't have time to
(24:12):
write and I can work on this, Idon't have time for this stuff,
cool, we can do this for youand we can go, because we know
what to do.
20 minutes, not three hours,right right and it allows us to
just kind of and we're notputting somebody at 60 dollars
and putting somebody at 10 bucks.
We're not charging you you knowabsurd amount of money to knock
this stuff out.
We'll set it up for you, youknow, walk you through how to
(24:34):
maintain it.
And then again, because bookpuma, we have these monthly
memberships.
We can just keep someone in theplatform.
So if they have a question thatcalled me, I came, came in, can
you help me with this?
Yeah, what do you need?
And it just becomes again.
It's like having a buddy.
We came in, can you help mewith this?
Yeah, what do you need?
As opposed to being this likeearth shattering cost.
And that's the biggest thingwe've been trying to do when
(25:03):
year, because they're kind of apain to publish, but it's gotten
a little better.
The problem with children'sbooks is everybody's got an idea
for a children's book butthey're never executed.
It's like I got this idea.
It's like, well, do you haveart, do you have this?
Well, no, then you have an idea, you don't have a book.
So we tried to stay away fromthose and, honestly, the only
(25:25):
issue I run into is a lot ofthem aren't written.
If it was written well, I'd bemore open to it.
So it's like sometimes I feellike the idea is controversial
but the writing is crap.
Like yeah, or it's a there's nodepth to it, right, it's just
anger.
We had like one story some guysent us that was like Like right
, yeah, or it's a there's nodepth to it, right, it's just
anger.
We had like one story that someguy sent us that was like
(25:50):
essentially just talking abouthow the world was better when
women were in their place, andit was that it was a story, but
there was essentially the whole,the whole theme, and it was
like, okay, so what was thegirl's name that broke up with
you?
Like, oh my God.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And it was only like 30,000 words.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It was like a short story, essentially, yeah, and it
was like and we kept sayingwhat's the plot of the story
Like?
He's like you don't understand.
He kept saying you don't,there's no plot.
The main character is just mad.
It's the plot.
He's like no, that's motivation, that's not a plot, right?
(26:30):
So the only downside I wouldsay to a lot of the
controversial stuff is that alot of them lack depth.
I feel like if you have moredepth understanding and, you
know, thought out stuff, you mayhave a controversial idea or
two and the topic may becontroversial, right, like dan
(26:53):
brown, when he came out was,quote-unquote, controversial.
But in the thick of things,when you read the book, the book
itself wasn't controversial.
Right, there was a few themesthat were controversial it
became controversial because ofa couple of topics in the book.
Right, the book itself wasn'tthat controversial, right?
So, like, see what I'm saying.
(27:14):
Like, so in that aspect, yes,now, if somebody were to just be
like, you know, like jesus gotkids, they're okay.
But what's the idea behind it?
Okay, but what's the?
You know what I mean.
Like you got to figure it out.
So I'm not against anything Iwill say no to.
(27:37):
I've never said no to anythingthat's well written.
I would at least read it.
But the problem is most of themkind of struggle.
I mean, technically, black bearlake, which is a really good uh
seller of ours, uh, by anaward-winning playwright.
It technically is a story abouttwo cousins that kind of fall
(27:58):
for each other in the summer,like over a summer, and you know
, know, explore more than theyshould, and it's kind of based
on a true story.
That's kind of, I mean, that'spretty controversial in the
grand scheme of things.
I mean now it's not saying, oh,you go, go explore yourself
with your cousin, but you know,so we're not like, oh,
(28:18):
everything's got to be CVSvanilla.
If the writing is done well,I'll let things slide.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Okay, that's good.
Yeah, because I'm gonna say oneof my friends he's working on a
story and there's a lot he doesa lot of, um, political
divisiveness you're making likeone villain looks like they're
doing this and our villain'sdoing this.
When I think I told my dude,people don't think that complex,
they're going to think you'rebeing divisive with feminism and
divisive with Christianity.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
He does intertwine it If it's done well, though if
the writing is done well, youshould upset some people, but
that's okay.
West Wing is one of my favoriteshows.
People used to call Aaron Sorkaaron sorkin.
You know the biggest left wingnut job if you go back and watch
that show.
He constantly poked fun at hisown party all the time, but
(29:15):
because he bloviated against theright a decent amount, nobody
even noticed.
So it's like people have atendency to only see what they
want to see.
You know what I mean rightthat's why I said so.
If the writing's done well, youcan make any, you know.
I mean, you can make anythingwork okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I was saying we're starting to get up on the uh,
the limit for the zoom call, andit looks like you got other
stuff to do.
Is there anything specific youwant to talk about or share with
the people?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I would say, when it comes to writing, just be
upfront with yourself and honestand realize everything you will
write today will feel like craptomorrow, because you get
better with reps.
In anything you do.
Every author's favorite book isthe last thing they wrote.
Every page they wrote today iscrap compared to the one they're
(30:07):
going to write in 10 years.
Reps do make you better.
So, that being said, do notfall in love with what you wrote
today.
Be open to the idea that youwrote something amazing, but
it's going to take some work tomake it better.
I've gone through it.
Every writer's gone through itand know that if you want a
90,000 word story, you're'sgoing to take some work to make
it better.
I've gone through it.
Every writer's gone through itand know that if you want a
(30:28):
90,000 word story, you'reprobably going to have to write
120 and you're going to have toedit it down to 85 and then fill
it back up to nine.
Like it's going to take somework.
Um, to think that it's not,then you're not ready, which is
okay.
And then I always try to tellpeople that's okay, it's okay to
not be ready, it's okay tostruggle.
(30:48):
I used to always say I get mad,then I get mad, then I get mad
and then I fix it.
I'm not so angry at the world.
At one point I created my ownpublishing company.
I was like I'm not going tojust be self-published, I'm
(31:15):
going to take work.
That not everyone's going tosee what you see, which is okay.
Some people hate the Beatles,some people hated Aerosmith,
some people, so somehow everyonehated Nickelback, yet they made
millions.
You know, people still talksmack about Hootie and the
Blowfish, yet they sold 22million albums in like 18 months
(31:37):
.
You know, so somebody bought it.
You know, at the end of the dayit's going to take work.
There's going to take somefeedback, but you'll get better
because of it.
If you're looking for reallygood feedback, affordable
feedback, reach out to book puma.
(31:57):
If you think you're ready,reach out the blue handle.
We're here for you.
If you're looking for a goodread, perfect, look up charles
domico.
I've got plenty of books out.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Alright, definitely will.
Thank you.
This has been really good andinformative.
Hello, hello everybody, how are you all doing
today?
So I had a wonderful chat withCharles.
We kind of just started theZoom call and we were just
chatting like old friends and Icouldn't find a proper place to
start the recording so I justkind of hit it halfway through
him explaining this one movie.
(00:20):
So that's where it's a littleout of context for the
introduction.
Other than that, where it's alittle out of context for the
introduction, other than that wego into a lot of information
really good.
Um, I want to talk to him inthe future about how he runs his
11 franchises franchisecompanies plus his publishing
and editing company.
(00:41):
Like how does he have themindset for that?
We were more just talking about, um, his publishing and editing
company specifically and, uh,other than that, it's a great
one.
If you're especially wanting tounderstand things about the
publishing industry, let usbegin somewhat slower, but kind
of funny it was.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It was awesome cool I had to watch it about two,
three times to get half thejokes.
Like I'll sometimes put movieson in the background I'm doing
work and the more I watched it,the funnier it got.
But I can understand why mostpeople were like what?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
is it?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
you either have to be kind of drunk, or so, uh, drunk
or high to kind of get thejokes or just not really paying
attention, like if I think ifyou sit there you're like all
right, let's get into this movie.
You're going to be like alittle disappointed.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
How'd you get into podcasting?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Why did I get into podcasting?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
So I got COVID back in 2020 when, whatever variant
came out, that was actuallykilling people, and I was having
a seizure on the floor and Iwas debating literally the day
before with a coworker.
I'm like, oh, I'm going to do apodcast.
Then it's like, oh, what aboutTwitter, mobs and this and that?
And he's like, just fucking, doit, you're small anyways, no
one cares about you, they're notgoing to get any clout trying
to kill you, and I think, sothat's where.
(02:07):
Then I had COVID on the floorseizing like a dog.
So once I blacked out for liketwo days and in that blackout I
remember saying to myself fuckthis, if I'm going to be getting
myself in trouble, it's forwhat I want.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So started once I was able to move right so that's
what started then.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
it was just easy for me to like talk to business guys
.
Like I found a website tomessage people.
I'm like hey, can you get on myshow?
And they're like, no, this isnot.
But all the business guys aredown totally and I just kind of
talked to all of them and that'show I just grew.
Now I talk to everyone.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
The crazy thing is, I mean people just like talking
about themselves.
Let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
You want to talk about yourself for 40 minutes.
Yes, Of course.
So what inspired you to do?
Your publishing company.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, a little bit of everything.
My mom, before she passed away,was digging into the arts.
She was an artist, um, and thenher health kind of took her
ability to do art.
I tried to get her to get to it.
She couldn't find center.
She was a painter and she hadhad strokes and nerve disorders
and I was like, man, that mightmake your art even better.
Come on, let's do this for themodern art trend now I wasn't
(03:26):
thinking of it from somebody whocould do things I would say
easily, but like certain thingscame from all the work she put
in, she could do it right.
And then now she was strugglingreally hard to do something
simple like how defeating thatwas.
I was more like, hey, we cansome money.
Yeah, watch my mom'sstrugglecom, you know.
And I had written two books inmy 20s and um threw them in a
(03:52):
shelf, I got in a and they justkind of floated around
everywhere I moved and rightbefore covid I had reached out
to this editor guy I'd done workwith for dang it, I'm sorry
about this.
Uh, come on, come on, there wego for an editor.
I ghost wrote blogs for yearsand for banks and all random
(04:19):
stuff.
I'm really good at just quickwrite, content writing.
And he really brutal.
Like I mean.
Mean, and I was like you knowwhat?
I got these books I'm gonnasend them to ben, who's really
brutal, because I trust that.
Like I know he'll be honest,because a lot of times you know
you're sending it out in theworld.
You're like I'm sure anyonewill take my money.
You know what I mean.
(04:39):
He's like oh, it's great.
Yeah, keep sending me more andas I started process I realized
how hard it was.
And I saw a couple agents wholiked my writing and they told
me they're like if you go to thebig five, they're going to make
you change the way you write.
Kind of the CBS television, ifyou're like an indie movie
(05:01):
producer, indie TV guy, but ifyou have a following from you
know, movie producer, indie tvguy, like, but if you have a
following from beingself-published, you'll, they're
not going to make you change it.
And I was like what do youconsider a fine?
Like, honestly, you're sellinglike a couple thousand books a
year.
That's a follow-up.
Like publishing is hard, likeokay.
So the more I looked into it Iwas like, well, how am I gonna
do all this work?
(05:21):
I might as well repeat it forother people.
Like I like logos, I'm a bigfan of logos, I can even get my
book Puma hat on my editingplatform.
And so I created a logo,created a company, and I
realized real fast that, like,if you're self-published you
can't really apply for a lot ofawards, but if you have a
publishing company you can look.
(05:43):
I quickly learned that justbeing an indie publisher, even
for myself, right, and like twopeople, I met my first two
authors this guy, andrew andJordan and Amarillo opened up a
lot of doors and what started asjust kind of this small project
for myself and maybe a coupleof local guys in Amarillo in
order to get traction for myselfand maybe a couple of local
(06:04):
guys in Amarillo in order to gettraction and then I met my now
vice president, madison, whomoved home during COVID from New
York.
She worked at WorkmanPublishing, one of the largest
publishers in New York, and thenmy editorial director, who
works for newspapers all overthe place.
He's actually now doing movies.
Ricky's amazing.
(06:24):
He went from being afraid to doa video on social media to
starring in Tyler like havingspeaking roles in Tyler Perry
movies.
His story is amazing.
That's cool.
And it just kind of became agroup of us just kind of coming
together and empowering eachother to just make good work and
kind of make mistakes together,kind of on my dime, but still,
(06:44):
you know.
And then we realized we neededmore than just the publishing
company, cause we're getting alot of bad manuscripts I don't
mean bad, like the story was bad.
For example, I had somebodyhand me a book they already self
published and in the first 10pages there was four different
fonts.
Like Ooh, yeah, that's not goodlike there's like there's bad,
(07:08):
and then there's like lazy, bad.
And then there's like did youforget to take your meds?
And I don't mean it, I meanlike do you have a handler like
like mental health's important?
And it's like did somebody tellyou to stop?
Like it's something like youcouldn't have, like hit select
all, like per your news, likenothing.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, put it all aerial or whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And I was like man, I am tired of just getting bad
work and we're finding peoplewho just don't realize how good
they are.
So we created a publishing andediting company alongside of it
and it's just kind of becometrying to solve problems little
by little by little, and we canonly publish so many people.
So the cool part about BookPumais we can help hundreds, if not
(07:50):
thousands, of people getpublished, whereas with Blue
Handle I can only publish fourto six people a year because
it's expensive.
We don't take money at BlueHandle.
I invest.
So I'll spend 50 to to 100grand a year investing in
authors.
Um to whether it's marketing,editing, you just salaries of
(08:11):
our employees, and if I makehalf that back, you know where.
Book puma helps us kind of keepthe lights on, but also helps us
kind of reinvest into a lot ofauthors.
We actually had a couple ofdifferent people recently do
some social media lives.
We're like, when you told mewhat, how affordable it was, I
was like how bad's the editinggoing to be?
(08:33):
It's like it's not.
We're just, we're trying tomake it affordable and not like,
you know, take your shirt offyour back.
We're trying to make, we'retrying to make.
We're trying to make it morecommunal based, but it's a
better way of, you know, figure,you know, pulling it off.
So and that's kind of how wegot into it.
It's just kind of been oneproject after another that's
(08:54):
cool.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, I want to say editing, because I've been
working on my different storiesand I've had a couple other
editors on the lowest I've seenfor pricing per word is like 4
cents and I'm like that soundscheap, but that's brutal and
some of them are saying like 6or 8 cents a word.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
I have thousands on my books.
My first 6 books, I think Ispent like 20-30 thousand
dollars on editing.
We have monthly memberships atBook Puma as low as 40 bucks.
Someone's like what I'm likeyeah, we can turn in a couple
pages at a time.
We have monthly memberships atBook Puma as low as 40 bucks.
Someone's like what I'm likeyeah, we can turn in a couple
pages at a time, because a lotof times you get bad habits in
the beginning and you don'trealize it's a bad habit and
(09:35):
then now you have to fix that.
Had you caught it in the first10, 20 pages, you wouldn't have
done it the next 200.
You know what I mean.
So our theory behind that is iswell, imagine you could just
get a few pages like that.
Imagine you could get on thephone with somebody and just get
a little bit of coaching sothat you can minimize the damage
along the way and have somebodylike to work with.
(09:55):
And more and more people arelike, oh, this is a real thing,
it is, it's not a scam.
I swear I know there's so manyout there which is I.
I got I wouldn't say scammed,because that's how the industry
is I just it's brutal.
I always.
The best way to describe it isit's like hiring a contractor to
redo your bathroom.
They come over and then theygive you the plans and they mark
(10:17):
everything off.
And then they leave and theycharge you and you're like well,
I paid, I paid you foreverything, like, but it's your
bathroom, don't you want to fixit?
And you're like but you're theexpert, I gave you the money,
right, it's like.
I was like.
I remember one of the first biglike editing jobs we did.
I told the editor I was likehey, man, you need to do one
(10:40):
rough version, right, that hasjust all the edits, and then
you're going to need to do aclean version where you fix all
the edits.
They're like no, that's like.
Yeah, they're like do you knowhow hard that is?
And I said yes, I know exactlyhow hard that is.
It's a pain in the butt and notevery person who gets into
writing knows how to do thatnumber one or wants to do that,
(11:04):
knows how to do that number oneor wants to do that right.
And this lady quit.
She quit over it.
This is stupid.
Two months later we get a call.
She goes.
I called my last 10 clients.
Every single one wanted me todo that.
I am so sorry it was.
I was like, yeah, they're soused to being like well, this is
what we always do.
This is what we always do.
(11:25):
And I used to have this likechat on my Slack channel with my
editorial director, ricky, andit was the question was always
is this a real thing, or did MsAnderson tell you in the seventh
grade you have to do this?
He's like and he used to kindof get mad at me and over time
he's like I'm starting torealize how much stuff we do,
(11:48):
cause miss Anderson in theseventh grade told us we had to
do it.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So that's kind of where boom and blue handle came
from.
I mean, I've got my own booksout.
I've got four in the Neo Baggioseries, one in Marie Perdita,
which is a spinoff from NeilBaggio, one, golden Day, which
is a really good graduation booklike relationships and stuff,
kind of college, and then I'vegot three books I'm working on
(12:18):
right now.
On top of I run 11 Jimmy John'sfranchises that I own two kids.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I actually have a baseball practice.
I don't sleep much I was goingto say how are you sleeping?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I just kind of black out on occasion.
No, I mean I just go until thebattery gives up and then I
start all over again.
It's kind of how it is.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, that's wild.
So for um, what are the?
Have you gotten a lot of goodbooks like potentials for your
company from the editing?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
yeah, we actually got three of our current books that
are coming out, uh, thebeginning of 2025.
Um, we're all book to myclients um that we found early
and offer like.
One person told me like, oh,you're just doing this, you can
turn people away and give themediting.
I was like, oh, it's the app.
I was like it allows me tocherry pick good people before
they realize you're good.
She's like that's rude.
(13:20):
It's like I don't mean in arude way, I mean like we get a
lot of manuscripts sent to us.
So I mean, usually we tell themthis is what I can offer, feel
free.
And I'm like I don't want toresist anyone's ability to grow.
I just don't Right, I, I we'reup front with what we offer,
what we can do for them, and ifthis works for them and that's
(13:40):
what they want, because theylike how we are and how we
communicate them, cool.
But if not, hey man, we'll helpyou any way that we can.
And usually just the honesty iswhat most people love.
It's because even at work theright, my restaurants I just had
somebody reach out for anapplication.
I was like on monday I can'tguarantee a spot will be
available, but you can reach outon sunday.
And I was like I'm not gonna,you know, not tell you otherwise
(14:03):
.
I was like plus, this is how Ifeel about someone with your
history.
I was like you know, just, welike to communicate clearly, we
like to up front, we like to bekind of honest right out the
gate.
And they were like well, no,even if I don't get the job, I
still want to sit down and talkto you.
That's really refreshing.
Thank you, you're welcome.
That's just kind of how we tryto approach everything is.
One of my favorite phrases isfill the void with information,
(14:29):
not someone's imagination andprevious experience.
You don't know where they camefrom, what they know, what they
don't know.
So don't just assume, take atime and just communicate.
And that's one of the coolthings we do at Book Puma.
That most editors don't do, atleast I've seen, is when we send
back a project, we do an audionote.
So the editor will reread thewhole cover sheet in audio
(14:51):
format and send it with theproject.
The reason being is a lot of usinternalize feedback negative,
right, so you may read you'restruggling with commas, see this
all the time.
Uh, you've got to get past it.
But the editor might read hey,man, you're struggling with
commas, you'll get past it, wesee this all the time.
But the editor might read hey,man, you're struggling with
commas, you'll get past it.
We see this all the time.
(15:13):
There's a huge difference,right, so you may internalize it
as you suck.
But if the editor is tellingyou in this really calm,
reassuring tone, now all of asudden you're like, oh okay,
I'll get past it then and thoselittle things that maybe take an
extra five to 10 minutes forthe editor make, I think, all
(15:34):
the difference in the world forthe person receiving that
feedback.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's a big one, as I'velike.
I had an editor for a while formy podcast and at certain
points she started doing thesame thing, cause she would send
me a critique saying this isabsolutely terrible, like why
did you do it?
And I didn't hear her tone.
So I'm thinking, gee, thislady's a bitch and she sent me a
voice.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Could have been laughing the whole time.
Right like right yeah, no shewas.
This is terrible.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
What do you think you're doing?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
yeah, but we hear it is like you're horrible, you
should, you should quit now.
All right, I'll stop, like I'lldo it, and that's kind of why
we were trying to.
We're trying to break downthose, those, those walls.
Like even the guy we did ourone of our books for last year,
ray franz the heights he's the Ialways mess this up he's the
(16:25):
great nephew of al capone'sright hand man.
So the guy who no one knewessentially ran Al Capone's
whole operation.
He was like hidden from theworld and Al Capone did this on
purpose, so that if anythingever happened to Al Capone or
somebody, all the businesseswould still run and most of the
families would be taken care ofbecause no one knew who this guy
(16:47):
was.
So this guy, ray, has access toall this family history and
decided to write this awesomebook.
Um, but he had, he had tofictionalize it for safety
reasons and so he wrote it andwe were the only publisher who
(17:07):
said it's not done like youended it, but I feel like you
stopped it like five chaptersshort.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
When it got good.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
He's like well, it's really long and we're like our
job is to.
I was like, keep writing.
If it's super long, we'll turnit into two books.
You know, whatever We'll figureit out.
So we invested a year, almost ayear.
It's like nine months ofediting and coaching, of helping
him finish the book before weeven, like, got into the
(17:36):
re-editing of the book.
It almost became a two yearprocess and remember, he's like
that's the reason he had offersfrom bigger publishers but he's
like none of them were going towork with me.
They just wanted to slap myname on a book and sell it.
He's like I just didn't want torisk my story not being told
properly I guess well, that's abig one.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, that's a big one for one of my friends there
you go.
I'll see, because one of myfriends did that.
She she does a hybrid, so sheself-publishes a good chunk of
her books, but she has contractswith two of the big fives.
It took her a while to getthere and that's where she said
they just literally expect youto pay for everything up front.
(18:19):
And then they're like and youhave to market everything too.
They don't really other thanputting you on their little
email newsletter.
You have to figure out how toget the books to sell.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Even the big five.
I got to meet jt ellison a fewtimes.
She's become good friends withricky and uh, it was one of the
big things I took away the firsttime I met her.
She's like I took my first bigcheck, my book deal and bought a
pr company, spent every dollaron marketing and she's like
without it I wouldn't havegotten a second book deal.
(18:50):
And it's like people don'trealize how little most
publishers do for you other thandistribute.
They're just distributioncompanies.
That's all they are.
That is it.
They don't.
They're looking for ready-madeproducts, not only books.
They're looking for people whoknow how to market, who know how
to function.
Like who already have an incomeor they have like the world's
(19:12):
most amazing story you know whatI mean like they're already
going viral.
Otherwise they're like theywon't touch you in the 10-foot
pole and that's the hard part,yeah, so uh, what I was going to
say was um, a lot of the peopledon't realize the amount of
money that goes into and howmuch, how many books just don't
(19:32):
sell, right.
So for, like every bestselleryou see out there, which most a
bestseller is 10 000 copies aweek for four weeks.
That's what a bestseller is.
So, and even that, you can dothat and still not be a
bestseller.
There's lots of books that selltons of books but don't make
the bestseller list becausethey're not with the right
(19:52):
publisher, they don't fit into acertain genre they don't like.
So the New York timesbestselling list is actually a
very like closed off list.
It's all make-believe.
It's like USA today has theirown.
That's why you know you cansell a million books on Amazon
(20:14):
and not make the best selling.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's a weird, it's a really weird thing.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yes, now, that being said, the average book is sells
less than 100 copies a yearaverage.
This is a legit thing.
They do these numbers everycouple of years.
They double check, for Forevery million dollar seller
million books, you havethousands of authors that sell
less than 10 copies a year.
That's the realist.
(20:42):
That's them, including the bigfive.
They will.
They will sign author afterauthor after author that will
literally die like their.
They will, like their book willjust sit on a shelf for two
months and then end up in awarehouse and never get sold.
Yeah, right, it's always betterto self-publish or find an
(21:03):
indie, because then at least youhave some control.
Right, like right.
If it takes you five years, ittakes you five years.
I mean, malcolm gladwell talksabout it took him like six years
to get turning point off theground.
He literally like went aroundthe country talking about it
non-stop until it finally tookoff, like it wasn't an overnight
success, like yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So I'm curious for you, for your publishing company
are there any specifics orgenres that you're looking for,
Any topics that may be off thetable because it's just too
controversial?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I would say controversial topics are because
I'm the one investing money,right.
So, like, we'll work with you,like through Bookuma, which
we've had a couple of come to usthat are pretty controversial
I'm like not touching that witha 10-foot pole but we were able
to work with them, get them theright services they need through
our Bookuma platform.
We do like a concierge servicewhere it's not hybrid, where we
(22:02):
own it.
We literally will do everythingfor you, almost like if you've
ever hired a web developer,where they'll create like a
generic email address that youshare on Google.
Like you know Chad and Brad'spodcast, add Gmail.
You know what I mean.
Like and then we'll createeverything.
We'll literally go into anAmazon account.
We'll create everything.
We'll share it with you and getyou on Amazon, get you an
(22:25):
IngramSpark account, get you anISBN, get you everywhere you
need to be.
We'll get it all taken care of.
And when we're working withcontroversial people, um, we
have this concierge, not justwith any, but with any person.
We have a concierge service,but we will work with them and
we will set everything up sothat they will access themselves
(22:47):
and then, once we're done, theywe can wash our hands of it
like here's, here's your logins,here's everything.
Now we actually have twogovernment like smaller
government contracts that we'reworking with, like one's like a
vfw, like a small military umguy.
Him and his buddies puttogether this book and they
wanted us to help us, like keeptabs on it.
(23:08):
So like every month they keepus on this like small stipend.
I think we're charging 20 amonth like it's not much.
You just keep tabs on it, makesure there's no issues.
Like it's literally I even feelbad charging 20 a month.
They're like we gotta, we gottacharge you something.
You I'm like okay, so we go in,make selling.
It's on all the platforms.
(23:28):
We answer emails from Ingram orAmazon, you know like hey, your
book has an error in thiscorner, that kind of stuff,
right.
And so we have those kind ofservices that we originally
weren't trying to do but so manypeople have asked for them.
We just started doing it.
Fair enough, and that has beenkind of one of my more favorite
(23:52):
ones because it's just kind ofbeen organic.
We actually kept fighting itand not wanting to do it, but so
many people kept asking for it,we were like all right, I guess
we're going to do it, and so ifyou, let's say, you're
self-published or you want to beself-published but you're like
I don't even know where to start, we could literally sit down
with you and go all right,here's the list of things to do.
If you're really busy andyou're like I don't have time to
(24:12):
write and I can work on this, Idon't have time for this stuff,
cool, we can do this for youand we can go, because we know
what to do.
20 minutes, not three hours,right right and it allows us to
just kind of and we're notputting somebody at 60 dollars
and putting somebody at 10 bucks.
We're not charging you you knowabsurd amount of money to knock
this stuff out.
We'll set it up for you, youknow, walk you through how to
(24:34):
maintain it.
And then again, because bookpuma, we have these monthly
memberships.
We can just keep someone in theplatform.
So if they have a question thatcalled me, I came, came in, can
you help me with this?
Yeah, what do you need?
And it just becomes again.
It's like having a buddy.
We came in, can you help mewith this?
Yeah, what do you need?
As opposed to being this likeearth shattering cost.
And that's the biggest thingwe've been trying to do when
(25:03):
year, because they're kind of apain to publish, but it's gotten
a little better.
The problem with children'sbooks is everybody's got an idea
for a children's book butthey're never executed.
It's like I got this idea.
It's like, well, do you haveart, do you have this?
Well, no, then you have an idea, you don't have a book.
So we tried to stay away fromthose and, honestly, the only
(25:25):
issue I run into is a lot ofthem aren't written.
If it was written well, I'd bemore open to it.
So it's like sometimes I feellike the idea is controversial
but the writing is crap.
Like yeah, or it's a there's nodepth to it, right, it's just
anger.
We had like one story some guysent us that was like Like right
, yeah, or it's a there's nodepth to it, right, it's just
anger.
We had like one story that someguy sent us that was like
(25:50):
essentially just talking abouthow the world was better when
women were in their place, andit was that it was a story, but
there was essentially the whole,the whole theme, and it was
like, okay, so what was thegirl's name that broke up with
you?
Like, oh my God.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And it was only like 30,000 words.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It was like a short story, essentially, yeah, and it
was like and we kept sayingwhat's the plot of the story
Like?
He's like you don't understand.
He kept saying you don't,there's no plot.
The main character is just mad.
It's the plot.
He's like no, that's motivation, that's not a plot, right?
(26:30):
So the only downside I wouldsay to a lot of the
controversial stuff is that alot of them lack depth.
I feel like if you have moredepth understanding and, you
know, thought out stuff, you mayhave a controversial idea or
two and the topic may becontroversial, right, like dan
(26:53):
brown, when he came out was,quote-unquote, controversial.
But in the thick of things,when you read the book, the book
itself wasn't controversial.
Right, there was a few themesthat were controversial it
became controversial because ofa couple of topics in the book.
Right, the book itself wasn'tthat controversial, right?
So, like, see what I'm saying.
(27:14):
Like, so in that aspect, yes,now, if somebody were to just be
like, you know, like jesus gotkids, they're okay.
But what's the idea behind it?
Okay, but what's the?
You know what I mean.
Like you got to figure it out.
So I'm not against anything Iwill say no to.
(27:37):
I've never said no to anythingthat's well written.
I would at least read it.
But the problem is most of themkind of struggle.
I mean, technically, black bearlake, which is a really good uh
seller of ours, uh, by anaward-winning playwright.
It technically is a story abouttwo cousins that kind of fall
(27:58):
for each other in the summer,like over a summer, and you know
, know, explore more than theyshould, and it's kind of based
on a true story.
That's kind of, I mean, that'spretty controversial in the
grand scheme of things.
I mean now it's not saying, oh,you go, go explore yourself
with your cousin, but you know,so we're not like, oh,
(28:18):
everything's got to be CVSvanilla.
If the writing is done well,I'll let things slide.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Okay, that's good.
Yeah, because I'm gonna say oneof my friends he's working on a
story and there's a lot he doesa lot of, um, political
divisiveness you're making likeone villain looks like they're
doing this and our villain'sdoing this.
When I think I told my dude,people don't think that complex,
they're going to think you'rebeing divisive with feminism and
divisive with Christianity.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
He does intertwine it If it's done well, though if
the writing is done well, youshould upset some people, but
that's okay.
West Wing is one of my favoriteshows.
People used to call Aaron Sorkaaron sorkin.
You know the biggest left wingnut job if you go back and watch
that show.
He constantly poked fun at hisown party all the time, but
(29:15):
because he bloviated against theright a decent amount, nobody
even noticed.
So it's like people have atendency to only see what they
want to see.
You know what I mean rightthat's why I said so.
If the writing's done well, youcan make any, you know.
I mean, you can make anythingwork okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I was saying we're starting to get up on the uh,
the limit for the zoom call, andit looks like you got other
stuff to do.
Is there anything specific youwant to talk about or share with
the people?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I would say, when it comes to writing, just be
upfront with yourself and honestand realize everything you will
write today will feel like craptomorrow, because you get
better with reps.
In anything you do.
Every author's favorite book isthe last thing they wrote.
Every page they wrote today iscrap compared to the one they're
(30:07):
going to write in 10 years.
Reps do make you better.
So, that being said, do notfall in love with what you wrote
today.
Be open to the idea that youwrote something amazing, but
it's going to take some work tomake it better.
I've gone through it.
Every writer's gone through itand know that if you want a
90,000 word story, you're'sgoing to take some work to make
it better.
I've gone through it.
Every writer's gone through itand know that if you want a
(30:28):
90,000 word story, you'reprobably going to have to write
120 and you're going to have toedit it down to 85 and then fill
it back up to nine.
Like it's going to take somework.
Um, to think that it's not,then you're not ready, which is
okay.
And then I always try to tellpeople that's okay, it's okay to
not be ready, it's okay tostruggle.
(30:48):
I used to always say I get mad,then I get mad, then I get mad
and then I fix it.
I'm not so angry at the world.
At one point I created my ownpublishing company.
I was like I'm not going tojust be self-published, I'm
(31:15):
going to take work.
That not everyone's going tosee what you see, which is okay.
Some people hate the Beatles,some people hated Aerosmith,
some people, so somehow everyonehated Nickelback, yet they made
millions.
You know, people still talksmack about Hootie and the
Blowfish, yet they sold 22million albums in like 18 months
(31:37):
.
You know, so somebody bought it.
You know, at the end of the dayit's going to take work.
There's going to take somefeedback, but you'll get better
because of it.
If you're looking for reallygood feedback, affordable
feedback, reach out to book puma.
(31:57):
If you think you're ready,reach out the blue handle.
We're here for you.
If you're looking for a goodread, perfect, look up charles
domico.
I've got plenty of books out.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Alright, definitely will.
Thank you.
This has been really good andinformative.
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