Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!
In this episode, I talk with best-selling author, CEO of Author Revolution, Millionaire Author Coach, and repeat guest, Carissa Andrews.
Topics we discuss include:
- Why Carissa made the move from WordPress to Shopify, and why it’s triggered her “happy bookseller heart!”
- Why Carissa’s pulling her books from KU.
- Why using Shopify for selling direct works best for authors with backlists, but also, why you should consider starting how you mean to continue.
- Why Carissa (mostly) quit social media, and what she uses instead.
- Why Carissa created her new course Four Books, Five Days: Mastering AI Enhanced Series Planning, and how you can get it at a killer price.
- How AI can help with plotting books, series concepts, and world building.
- Why Carissa isn’t scared of AI stealing her work.
- Why the ‘way’ we use AI is important, and why Carissa doesn’t use it to write her books for her!
If you’re open-minded and curious about how AI can be used as a tool to help with plotting, and why so many authors are moving towards selling direct, then you’re not going to want to miss this entertaining and inspiring episode with Carissa Andrews!
Sign up for Carissa’s latest course, Four Books, Five Days: Mastering AI Enhanced Series Planning, here: https://academy.authorrevolution.org/a/2147625144/woteKkRf
Please Note: I am an affiliate for Carissa’s Four Books, Five Days course and have purchased it myself. I only recommend resources I enjoy, engage in or use myself. As an affiliate I get a small kickback at no extra charge to you.
Visit Carissa’s websites here: https://authorrevolution.org/ https://www.carissaandrews.com/
Join Carissa’s Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/CarissaAndrews
Listen to the Bonus Episode of Alchemy for Authors: Millionaire Author Manifestation with Carissa Andrews here.
Listen to Episode 16 of Alchemy for Authors: Millionaire Author Mindset with Carissa Andrews here.
Listen to Episode 58 of Alchemy for Authors: Author Alignment & the Enneagram with Claire Taylor here.
Listen to Episode 20 of Alchemy for Authors: Intuition & Success for Authors with Becca Syme here.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review. You can also support the show by buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jobuer. Your support helps me keep this podcast going.
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Grab your copy of my latest paranormal cozy, Hades’s Haunt, here: https://books2read.com/hadesshaunt
Find the full transcript of this episode below.
Episode 61: AI Enhanced Plotting & Selling Direct with Carissa Andrews
Jo: Hello, my lovelies, welcome back to another episode of Alchemy for Authors. This is Episode 61: AI Enhanced Plotting and Selling Direct with Carissa Andrews.
So this episode might create a little bit of controversy because my guest and I are talking about artificial intelligence and how it can be utilized by authors. Now, here’s the disclaimer. I am not saying that I agree with particular ways that it has already been used in certain industries, and this is not an episode about how to write a book using AI. This is an episode about how AI can assist in plotting and world building and in creating series concepts. It is about using AI as a tool, and it’s about using it in a way that feels ethically, morally comfortable for you. So one of the beliefs that I do prescribe to is that with any new technology, we need to come at it from a stance of being curious and informed. I think those are the two main things that we really need to look at anything new. I think it’s really good to be curious about new technologies, to explore them, have a bit of a play, see how they operate. And in doing so, we also become a little bit better informed. Because let’s face it, in this day and age, there are so many ideas out there, beyond just AI, that are coming from perspectives that really aren’t all that informed. And so I think it’s really important that we become informed about these things that are ultimately going to impact upon our lives in one way or another, whether we like it or not. And in doing so and becoming curious and becoming informed, then we’re in a much better position to decide for ourselves whether it’s a technology that we want to use and how we might use it.
Another idea that I also prescribe to is that bad people are going to do bad things with whatever tools they have access to, including AI. So how you utilize it is completely up to you. And I am pretty confident that the people listening to this podcast, you are good people. You want to do the right thing, and you’ve got high morals, and you’re not out there to trample on anybody else in this industry. And so I really do believe that however AI finds its way into your writing life, it’ll be used in such a way that will not be harmful to others.
There’s my little spiel because I do know that talking about artificial intelligence, can open the door to lots of very strong opinions, and I am really hoping that this episode is met with an open mind. Take what you want to take from it. Leave behind anything that does not fit for you and your author life. That is all I’m asking from you. Please don’t inundate me with negative posts or emails or anything like that in regards to this. The viewpoints expressed on any of these episodes, unless of course it’s a solo episode, are not necessarily my personal ones. But I am pretty upfront and honest when I do agree with something that an author or a guest on the podcast shares.
And now that I’ve got that little kind of disclaimer out the way, I do also wanna say that this is actually a fantastic episode if you are looking at other ways of creating a solid income from your books and to take back more control of your sales and your interactions with your customers.
Today’s guest is an amazing author. I’ve had her on the show a few times. She is a strong believer in manifestation, the law of attraction. I will post in the show notes a couple of links to previous episodes where she talks specifically about how your thoughts and your actions create the life you live, and how you can utilize that to move the needle towards your dreams, particularly in the world of writing and selling books.
So Carissa will also be sharing her transition to selling direct and having her website move from WordPress to Shopify and why this just has her so excited about everything right now. And I know that I came away from this episode really inspired and thinking about ways that I could really up my game with increasing my readership for my books, and moving that dial, of course, towards more sales and yeah, just that wonderful sense of satisfaction that there are more eyes on my words.
So even if the AI aspect of this episode is not for you, I do recommend that you listen at least to the first half where we talk a lot about selling direct and Carissa shares her experience with that so far.
So I’m just gonna backtrack a little bit because I thought I’ll share just a quick little personal update. If you have listened to the previous episode, you will know that I had an upcoming local book signing event that I was attending with 25 or so other authors. The event has come and gone. It was really, really freaking amazing. So much fun. I was an absolute bundle of nerves when I had to get up for my four-minute little speech and little spiel that I did on my book Hades’s Haunt, but it went really well and there was a pretty solid audience there and I sold a lot more books than I was expecting to. And one of the things I wasn’t expecting was that the sales continued actually throughout the week, which has been really great. One of the other amazing things that came out of this experience, because if you’ve been listening, you’ll know that I’ve kind of held myself back from being involved locally with selling my books and kind of coming outta the closet as an author. I’m better known probably in countries outside of New Zealand as I sell majority of my books outside of New Zealand. But one of the amazing things that I got out of this was the networking and connections with other New Zealand authors. And so you can expect in forthcoming episodes, for me to be chatting with a lot more Kiwi authors, which will be fun. So you’ll be hearing more of this accent. There we are.
So that was really, really great and I hope at some point I’ll be able to do a bit of a solo episode where I can talk a little bit more about my experience doing a local event and yeah, just some of the amazing things that have come out of it and some of the things that have surprised me and what I would do differently as well.
I also wanna say, I know this is a long intro here, but thank you so much to all the amazing people who reached out to me after the last episode, Episode 60. I had emails and DMs and messages and that, just saying that the episode really resonated with them. And some people were saying it was what they felt was my best episode yet. And also a big shout out to Kathleen B, I won’t say your last name just in case you don’t want it advertised, but who purchased a few coffees through the Buy Me A Coffee app, and said some really lovely things too, which really made my day. So I really do appreciate all of you who listen to this podcast, who enjoy this podcast and who reach out to me. It really does put a smile on my face and, and makes my day and, yeah. And if there’s anything in particular that you want to hear on the show too, make sure that you do reach out. You can even email me at jo@jobuer.com and give me the heads up on anything that you’d like to hear discussed on this show as well. That would be fantastic.
So, as I have already mentioned, today I am chatting with bestselling author and one of my favorite people, repeat guest, Carissa Andrews. Carissa is an award-winning and internationally bestselling Indie author with more than 20 books published. She’s the CEO of Author Revolution, an online academy dedicated to helping indie authors become publishing powerhouses. As the host of the Author Revolution Podcast, Carissa dives into topics from step-by-step strategies for indie authors, to mindset techniques that elevate authors to manifest their millionaire author destiny.
So if you are ready to follow me on this journey and dive into our conversation, now is the time to grab a drink, find a comfy chair, sit back and enjoy the show.
Welcome to the show, Carissa. It’s so good to have you here.
Carissa: Well, thank you so much for having me, Jo. I’m so excited to be back.
Jo: Yeah, well, there is so much that I want to talk to you about because you are doing so many new and exciting things in changing up the whole way that you are operating your author business, which is really, really cool. So I wanted to talk about some of that today.
Carissa: Love it.
Jo: Cool. And I kind of wanted to start actually, because you’ve been on the show quite a bit, so I’ll put all the links to the previous episodes so people can catch up on who you are if they don’t know who you are, but—
Carissa: Absolutely. I love that.
Jo: Yeah. But I want to talk a little bit about how you are changing things up with going a little bit more direct and you’ve set up a Shopify website and you’re just doing some really cool things. So I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about some of the changes you’ve made?
Carissa: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So over the past year, I’ve gone to a number of conferences and one of the takeaways, you know, you go to these conferences and you should go away with a couple of actionable items that you know for sure you’re gonna wanna take away and implement. Right? The big ones for me were I wanted to look more into Kickstarter. I wanted to look more into going and selling direct, and I wanted to look more into automations and how they worked. Those were my three big ones. And I haven’t pulled any triggers with Kickstarter just yet because I’m working on a new pen name and I’m thinking about doing it for that pen name. Haven’t gotten to that stage yet, but it’s in the brewing phase, right?
What I could work on though was the Shopify store and I’ve been looking at authors who are going direct what they’ve been doing, how it’s been working out for them. I knew I wanted to do a rebrand and revisit my website just to get it working in a way that was faster. I’ve had the same website on WordPress for a very long time. It was bogged down. It had a lot of stuff in the backend that just was kind of slowing it down, and I wanted it to be fresh and revitalized. But when I was going to these conferences, so many people were talking about direct sales and how it’s like revolutionizing the way that things are working for them. And for me, I’m a very curious person by nature, so when people start talking about it, it’s like I have to test it out. I need to see how it works. I have to deconstruct it. I think that’s where my son gets that from when he takes apart every like mechanical thing known to man, but I like, I need to go try it.
And so for me, I was looking at my website and I’m like, you know what, I’m just gonna pull the trigger. I’m going to check and see how Shopify works. Because I had a WooCommerce store. It’s, you know, attached to my WordPress site. And so I didn’t like how it was working. It was a little bit clunky. Obviously, I had a number of series that are still in KU, so I couldn’t bring digital copies in there. I hadn’t quite pulled the trigger and connected like a Bookvault or a Lulu Press type situation yet. So it was like literally just the sign copies they could get from me and then a couple of eBooks that were not in KU, and my audio books. But the more I was looking at the way Shopify worked and the more I was seeing how authors are really excited about the connections that Shopify itself kind of creates, the automations that are in the backend that you can incorporate, the more I was like, this is the way I want to go.
My first job literally was a book seller in like a local bookstore, and then I ended up working for Walden Books and I, you know, I kind of went from there. And so this was like getting to create my own bookstore. How cool is that? Like all of a sudden now I’m creating all these products and all these variants of the products, and I’m like, Ooh. And then I could bundle these products together and I could do the— so it’s like all of a sudden, like all these possibilities started opening up to me and how I could like, create my products, my books in a way that I can entice the readers to, you know, dig in in new ways. I can start sharing coupons or, you know, bundles at discounts. I can do so many different things that I can’t do on other retailers, right? And so I was like, you know what? I wanna do this. I wanna get into it. I can do merch in there. I can like do birthday, like discounts in there. Like all sorts of cool things. And it’s just like triggered my happy bookseller heart.
And so, yeah, I’ve been working on my Shopify store from moving from WordPress, and it’s been phenomenal. It’s been so much fun to play around with. It’s been easy to work with. I’ve had a couple of like blips here and there, but for the most part it’s just been super cool. I love it.
Jo: It really does look so fresh. Like that word that you said, when you said fresh, that is exactly how it looks. ‘Cause I went and checked out your website, your new website and everything, and yeah, it looks so good. So clean, so easy to use. Yeah. Really, really cool.
Carissa: And it’s so friendly for the user. Like if they come to the store and, you know, so I like, I changed everything in the backend of all of my books to point to my store. That was the first thing. Well, other than taking a few of my series that are currently in KU out, so they will be ending like by September. My Windhaven books and my Diana Hawthorn books are going to be out of KU so that I can bundle the eBooks in various ways that I can’t obviously do if they’re in KU. They’re already ready to go in the backend, like literally I just need to put the trigger on, turn it on and be like, woohoo, once they’re out of KU. And so I’m very excited about all the different ways that I can like mix and match and do things. And I’ve been brainstorming with my PA Jenny about like different kinds of merch that we can create and like the all sorts of things are coming. They’re just not obviously there yet, ’cause it’s like a work in progress.
And lemme tell you, when you start, when you think you only have a couple books, like right, it’s only like 23 books. It’s fine. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Then all of a sudden you realize there’s four variants for each of those books. You know, it’s like a signed book and paperback book and audiobook and eBook and all the things. And you’re like, okay, so those 23 just went and increased by four times. So it was an interesting endeavor, but it’s been worth it. It’s been so much fun just to create it.
Jo: Yeah. And honestly, I love that stuff. It looks so good. That must have been such a big jump though, pulling your books from KU because you are primarily a KU author, aren’t you? Or do you go wide with some of your books as well?
Carissa: I’m half and half, but my bigger series, the ones that have been like the moneymakers for sure, have been KU books. But those two that I’m bringing out have been in KU for a number of years now. So, I’m kind of like, you know what? It’s time for them to come out. I wanna start seeing what I can do. And with the KU page reads, you know, rate going down and down and down, it’s getting to the point where you’d have to sell three books, you know, have three book read, book reads. Oh my gosh. See if I can talk today. Three books read in KU in order to equal one sale. And it’s like, okay. Three. As much as I wanna be accessible to my readers in the ways that they’re reading my books, I kind of feel like it’s time to start training them to be okay with, you know, buying directly from the creators.
And I know Gen Alpha and, and maybe a little bit of Gen Z I guess they’re starting to come up a bit. They are used to working with creators, content creators. You know, they were the YouTube kids. They were, you know, working with the YouTube content creators and they’re like, oh my gosh, I love this creator. I need to buy their merch from their merch store. Well, guess what? It’s a Shopify store. They’ve been using Shopify. YouTube creators have been using it for a long time. And so those audiences, those younger readers, the store looks familiar to them. They understand how to navigate it. They know that they wanna support their creator that they love. Right? And so it’s, for them, it’s very easy to transition to buying books directly from the authors. I think it’s gonna take a little bit more time to get people who are a little bit older, maybe my age, whatever, to transition to sell, you know, because everyone’s a little bit skeptical of buying directly from someone’s website. It’s like, oh, is this really a thing? But, I think the more authors that are doing it, the more that they’re gonna realize, hey, we’re all using, using this system that it all looks very similar. It’s all working the same, that it’s gonna be a lot easier for them to also purchase as well. And it’s just, I mean, look at Taylor Swift for crying out loud. Biggest artist in history. She has a Shopify store. So moms and dads who are buying merch for their kids, if they’re not already, they’re used to Shopify stores, you know? Right?
Jo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s true. And there is something about the Shopify, just the setup and that, that, I don’t know. It does set it apart from your normal author website. Like it just, it looks that next level sophisticated and yeah. I don’t know how to describe it, but yeah.
Carissa: It’s like having a bookstore. It’s seriously, and it’s no longer like, here’s my website, here’s a little bit about me. I really hope you like me and my stuff. It’s gone from that to like, here’s my books, here’s the store. Get some cool deals when you buy it from me. Like let’s, yeah, let’s have this wonderful experience in the genre you love to read and get some like cool bonuses from the author. Like so many cool ways that you can incorporate like free stuff and sell, you know, sell merch that can be combined with it and they’ll get the free, you know, bookmark because they bought this book or in like all sorts of ways. You can yeah, connect things. It’s so cool.
Jo: Yeah, I really, really like it. So I went and I had a bit more of a look about it ’cause I’ve been hearing about Shopify, but hadn’t really looked into it until kind of looking at your website and everything. And unfortunately, being on this side of the world, New Zealand, everything is of course in US dollars and it’s like double here in New Zealand.
Carissa: Oh no.
Jo: Yeah, yeah. So it’s a little bit on the steep side, but, so here’s my question for you then. Where in your author journey do you think somebody should maybe consider doing Shopify? Like do you think it’s gonna work best for those people with a really established readership who are already like, maybe got a couple of series? Or do you think maybe times are changing and people should start right from the beginning with considering Shopify? What’s your thoughts on that?
Carissa: So originally when I was getting everything ready, I was thinking I’m gonna just do Shopify with the new Romcom pen name as it comes out. I’ll switch everything over come January when I’m getting ready to, you know, do the pre-orders and all the things. And the more I was researching, the more I found that when you have a backlist, that’s when Shopify can work best. Because obviously you can put in apps in the backend that can recommend other books that are, you know, similar or that other people have purchased. You can group frequently boughts together. You know. There’s a lot of different ways that it will mix and match in the backend for you to be able to maximize how many sales you’re getting from your store and from everything that you’re trying to put out there.
So authors who have a backlist already are probably gonna benefit the most from it first, because of the options. It’s just the way that it works, right? It’s that cumulative unfair advantage as Joe Solari puts it. And so it’s about having the options just to be able to entice them to buy. But at the same time, if you’re an author who knows you’re gonna be around for a while. You know that your books, you know, like you’re not going anywhere, you’re not gonna just fly by night. Oh, if this didn’t work, then I’m not gonna, you know, whatever. If you know this is your thing and you’re gonna go, I would just start off as you mean to go on. Because as your books grow, as that back list grows, the options are gonna grow with it. You’re gonna be training your readers from the get go, how to purchase from you, and you know, give them that readership community right off the bat. And I think that is gonna set you apart long term as you’re going on.
Because it’s just, I mean, the way that it works and the way that you can create such unique and wonderful benefits for readers. It, I mean, it is unparalleled. And so it just depends on you. It, like, if money is tight, if it’s an issue to, you know, to purchase and pay the $29 a month to use Shopify and the however much it is for getting the reviews or, uh, Klaviyo or any of the things, right? If the other apps are a problem and, and the monthly fee is an issue, then just wait a little bit. Wait until your sales are coming in before you can justify it. Right? But be thinking about it like as soon as you could go, okay, I think I could afford the 50 some odd dollars a month based off of my royalties coming in, and it’s gonna cover this new store. Start moving towards that direction, right? Because it’s gonna pay dividends down the road.
I think this is really the direction Indie authorship is going. And you know, as much as I love the retailers, as much as I love the opportunities that Amazon has presented for us authors, I think there comes a time where we have to take ownership of our own creations and start building that readership and that collaboration with our readers in new and better ways. So, I mean, you can’t get the email addresses from the people who buy from Amazon, from Barnes & Noble, from wherever. You can’t have that communication or that relationship with them that you can have when they’ve purchased from your store, and now all of a sudden you can, you know, talk to them. You can say, Hey, why didn’t you, like, there’s abandoned cart flows. There’s ways that you can communicate with people who are looking and they didn’t purchase. There’s ways, I mean, it’s amazing what you can do in the back end of Shopify. I’m still floored with all the different ways that you can do things, and I’m uncovering new stuff every single day where I’m like, oh my God, this is so cool. This is so cool.
Jo: It’s so exciting and there has been a change in the indie author sphere anyway, where I’ve been seeing a lot of people who made the majority of their income and that from KU going Wide lately. Like more and more people are pulling outta that and looking at going Wide across the other platforms. And there’s just a lot of those kind of changes in that, which is, yeah, pretty, pretty exciting. So, yeah. And I saw on your Shopify website too, as I was exploring and that, I’m like, well, this is so cool ’cause you’ve brought all your reviews over with you. So great! Yeah. So is that pretty seamless to do?
Carissa: I didn’t bring all of them. The way that the app works, it brings in some of the reviews. So it caps it at a certain number. When you’re trying to bring ’em all in. So it’s not like, there are some of the books that I have like 900 reviews or ratings and so, alright. Yeah. It brings like 50 or a hundred or I mean, like you can, you can pull in a certain number. I can’t remember what the max is. I just kind of went with the default at first just to see how it works. People are divided by like that review aspect of it. Some people are like, you know, never use that sort of app because heaven forbid, the content that is created from a review is copyrighted by technically the person who wrote it.
And then there are others where it’s like, you know, if they’re putting it on your page, they’ve already given you, by a public domain, the review for that particular book, so use your own judgment when it comes to that. I personally wanted to put it on there because I want to see, I want the readers to see that these aren’t just like books that no one has ever seen before, right? That it’s not just like a fake website and whatever. I wanted people to be able to see that these are actual reviews, they are actual people who have purchased this book and who have read the book and whatever. So just use your own judgment. I know Morgana Best definitely says, don’t do it. Don’t use those apps. And I just personally, just chose for myself that I wanted to have them included. At least for now. If someone says, you know tomorrow, oh my gosh, don’t do it. You’re going to tank your entire author career by doing it, then I’ll take it down. Yeah, it is what it.
Jo: Yeah, I thought it was good. I like seeing the reviews there because I think you’re right. Like for anybody that maybe heard about you through word of mouth or something like that, hadn’t, you know, been following you for a while, didn’t know your books or anything, it gives a little bit of that legitimacy.
Carissa: It just helps them to understand and read it. When they read those reviews and go, oh, okay. And even if they see it and go, I’m still not sure, and I think that’s part of the reason why I didn’t incorporate all of the reviews. It’s like if they see my store and there’s only, you know, 50, 75, whatever, reviews on there, but then they go over to Amazon and there’s 900 reviews, they’re gonna know, like, obviously I’ve been around for a while. This is something that they can, you know, check out on. If they wanna purchase from Amazon, have at it. But like, even in the backend of all of my books, as soon as the store was live, I changed the back matter so that anything that says leave a review or get book two, you know, whatever, all of it’s pointing to my Shopify store. Instead of pointing to Amazon, which is how I used to have it, or using a Books2Read link if they are wide. And for me it’s been nice because there’s a lot of, you know, organic visibility of the store coming through those links, through the backends of the books, and they’re able to, if nothing else, see that I have a store that they can purchase directly from. It’s that kind of, you know, subliminal marketing where it’s like, you could buy from me directly if you’d like, but of course you can go over to Amazon or wherever you bought Book One, or Book Three or, you know, whatever. It really doesn’t matter to me, but I want them going to my store first.
Jo: That’s cool. That’s really cool. And then just because you know, I’m kind of following what you’re doing and everything, and then you put out a thing on like Instagram and that, that you’re quitting social media, which like is just so shocking.
Carissa: No, that was earlier this year, Jo. What are you talking about?!
Jo: No, I know. Well, it was earlier this year, but it’s one of those things that I think so many of us are like, you know, we always hear you have to be on social media. It’s the only way you’re going to get that visibility and you know, it’s one of those ‘you should’, ‘you should’, and then you just, it’s like…
Carissa: What visibility? I don’t know if anybody’s been paying attention, but like organic visibility has tanked. It really has. You know, it really has. It’s been terrible. So for me, earlier this year, I was just getting burnt out. I do social media for Author Revolution still, and so I’m doing a lot of that anyway. But for my author side, I just wanted to test, I- especially with that one, for whatever reason, the engagement there was just going down and down and down. I’m like, you know what? I’m not having as much fun as I used to have, and so I’m gonna open a Patreon page and I’m gonna do stuff there instead. And rather than using, you know, like Amazon’s Kindle Vella or anything like that, any kind of platform that allows you to, you know, serialize your fiction as you’re writing it. I chose to do it with Patreon instead, where if I’m writing a work in progress, they can get this story as I’m writing it. They’ll get a mini fix, they’ll get social media content as I would normally post it. Those ones are actually public. And so I use that. I’m basically using Patreon as my social platform.
And so people will get, you know, the live public posts that I would normally post on my social media stuff. Every once in a while, I will still post on social, so it’s not a complete give up. I have, like, when I’ve had a new book launch, I’m like, hey guys, I’m still here, because then all of a sudden Facebook’s like, oh my God, this person who hasn’t posted in the past six months just posted something. You should check it out.
So then it actually works toward your benefit, right? But Patreon’s been great because when I’m posting the information I have like three— It’s so funny, I was talking with Becca Syme about this. I’m like, I love it so much more. I have five people who are on my Patreon who are paid Patreons. I have way more people who are following the open stuff, right? The five people who are paid or are so engaged. And it’s so much fun because now I get to have conversations about the works in progress. I get to like know a little bit more about them. It’s been fun to go back and forth, and they get signed copies when things are done because that’s the level that they’re at. And it’s just overall, it has a more inclusive, fun vibe. And I found by talking to Becca, that I’m a number one relator. And so that strength likes to have, like a close-knit group of people. And so I am way more happy posting on social media with five people responding to me than I am hollering into the void of like nothingness. And so that’s just been a lot of fun and, and I’ve actually decided that I’m gonna continue doing it that way. Where Patreon’s my place, if anyone wants to find me, come there. Yes, I’ll still post, you know, on the rare occasion on other social media, but for the most part I’m all in with Patreon. It’s been so much fun. Plus, they get cool stuff, like I’ve got merch set up on there where they can get exclusive Patreon merch for my stuff, and it’s just been so much fun. I love it.
Jo: So exciting. It is so cool watching you do all these fun things. So, so cool.
Carissa: Hopefully it’s inspiring people too, not to just be like, that might work for her. No, you get to have anything. If you want it to work for you, let it work for you.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And just because, where my mindset has been, you were one of the people that talked about Claire Taylor and the Enneagram, I think in one of our previous conversations. And then, you know, I purchased her book and I had her on the show. And then you just brought up Becca Syme and Strengths Finder. And so my brain at the moment is very much in that “we are all individuals”. Find your strengths, know your Enneagram, find your strengths, and then, yes, create your author career around who you are and what works for you. And I love it. And because I think particularly when you’re starting out, we get really bombarded with this is the one and only way that you are going to be able to make money and we should all fit into this one box and do everything like this. And so what-
Carissa: And does that work for anyone?
Jo: No, I really don’t-
Carissa: No, it doesn’t.
Jo: No, it doesn’t. And so it’s so cool seeing you just going out there and doing different things, which is really cool. Yay. And you have something else really exciting on the horizon here that I want you to talk about. Which as we amp up towards NaNoWriMo in November, you’ve got a bit of a… I’m not sure if you’re calling it a course or a masterclass or what, but maybe you can talk a little bit about what you’ve got on the horizon there for our lovely listeners as well?
Carissa: Absolutely. So in the past I’ve run this thing called the Three-Day Plan Your Series Challenge. And it’s been so much fun as a Preptober ramp up to getting ready to NaNoWriMo for NaNoWriMo that I just kind of have been feeling this vibe of, I wanted to expand it. I wanted to bring it out to five days instead of three. Because that was some of the feedback I was getting. Like there was so much good stuff in that final day and they wished they had just a little more time, even though technically they had a full week. But I wanted to entice them by this like three-day thing. Like, we can do this in three days. And so I’ve been playing around with this idea of wanting to do the planning series challenge, but extending a little bit. And then on top of it, I was talking with my husband about the ways that I’ve been changing my process and the way that I’ve been changing the way that I do series creation, the way that I do my outlining process, the way that I do ideation when it comes to trying to get ideas for a scene or for like characters or like even Enneagrams, right? And AI is a big part of that.
So I’ve been using ChatGPT for quite a while, probably the majority of this year, to come up with, you know, series concepts, story outlines. Figure out characters, like using Claire Taylor’s Enneagram and trying to use ChatGPT to create a character based off of an X Enneagram, right? Not X, but you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So using one of the numbers, like a nine Enneagram, whatever. So it’s been so much fun just to play around with ChatGPT, figure out how it works, figure out how it works best in my process. And I’m not one to follow trends. And so it never occurred to me to create a course on AI. Like there are plenty of people out there doing courses on AI. They’re talking about it, they’re doing the thing.
For whatever reason, you know, I was really struggling with, I wasn’t like really excited about the Plan Your Series extension, and all of a sudden those two things came together where I’m like, oh my God, my process has changed so much. I should really be doing a new course. A different course. Because there are gonna be people, obviously, maybe even some of your listeners who are like, don’t tell me this is another person with AI stuff. Yuck. Right? Even my own PA has turned on me. She is like very black and white. She doesn’t wanna hear anything to do with AI at all. Like don’t even talk to her. But for me, I am not new-technology averse. I love to play with new technology. I love to see how it’s gonna work. I love to test it. I love to, like, I don’t make judgements until I’ve already dug around in it and figured it out a little bit so that I can know whether or not I like it.
And so, since I’ve been using AI and since it’s gonna be a different process than people who would normally like, create a series, you know, from using tools like Scapple or Scrivener or, you know, searching around in Amazon or whatever. I’m creating a brand-new course. It’s actually a course, and rather than being a challenge. It’s kind of like a challenge because it’s still gonna be only five days and it’s gonna be a live launch course. It’s called Four Books, Five Days: Mastering AI Enhanced Series Planning. So we’re gonna use a lot of the same concepts that I have in the Three-day Plan Your Series Challenge, except for I’m using all AI technologies in how I’m building it. So I’m gonna walk through how I’m using ChatGPT, how I’m using Sudowrite. I might even get into talking about Midjourney and how I’ve been using it for ads, for using images for my website, things like that. I haven’t decided if that’s gonna go into it just yet, because for the most part, when you’re planning a series, you’re gonna wanna be working mostly with a series concept and all that. So I’m not quite sure if I’m gonna go into imagery at all.
But yeah, so we’ve got day zero, we’re gonna be talking about mindset because, uh, let’s face it, AI is a whole new, whole new ball game, guys! And so we’re gonna be talking about mindset and why it’s important to be looking at this through the lens of curiosity instead of, you know, immediately putting up the shields and being like, this is the worst idea ever. Because I think, you know, that’s human nature, right? Something new comes along and it’s so vastly different. It’s upsetting the industry, so you’re gonna pick sides. It’s, you know, pro or it’s against, and it’s like all this craziness, and we really don’t need to be in that. I think this is the future of creation. This is the future of the way that creators are going to create the things that they create, and those that refuse to at least look at it or acknowledge it, they’re gonna get left behind a little bit.
Doesn’t mean that their stuff isn’t gonna eventually like still be amazing and sell incredible. It doesn’t mean any of that. But it will mean that they’re not operating probably at their best, highest game. Because there are some really cool tools. Really, it’s like Shopify, but really cool tools to be able to help you to ideate. Right? And so for me, we’ve got day one, we’re gonna be doing AI ideation. We’re gonna be brainstorming all the things. Unleashing ChatGPT in order to create like series concepts to be, you know, coming up with ideas of what is it that we really wanna tell, what genre is it? We’re gonna use AI, ChatGPT to do that.
Day two is gonna be AI assisted series concepts. So we’re gonna talk about like next level or high level concepts when it comes to series. How do we want this series to look? Do we want it to be cohesive? Do we want it to be single titles? What kind of series are we creating? We’re gonna talk with ChatGPT about that.
Day three is AI infused character and world buildings. We’ll be going into all the things character and world building. So we’ll be talking about Enneagrams, probably. We’ll be talking about how you can create some really unique, awesome things using ChatGPT, because it’s so much fun. It’s like having the best critique and or like writing partner in the world, I swear to God. It’s so cool.
Day four, we’re gonna talk about your series choices and enhanced plotting techniques. So we’re gonna kind of dig a little bit more into all the goodies when it comes to, you know, your series, the, the amount of words that you’re gonna write, what’s it gonna look like, how often are you gonna be writing all those things. I’ll also give like a Scrivener world building template, so that can be incorporated in that as well.
Day five is outlining your books. So then we’re gonna actually get into the nitty gritty of getting four books planned. So that’s why it’s called Four Books, Five Days. We’re gonna plan out the series, so get the series concept organized. Then we are gonna actually outline all four books and we’re trying to get it all organized and ready to go before NaNoWriMo starts in November. And so it’s gonna be a lot of fun. We’re gonna just dig into all the ways that ChatGPT can really help. We’ve got a Q and A that’s actually gonna be happening on the seventh, so a live Q and A. So anyone who is a part of the course can come in, talk about it, and if they are using it in different ways, I’m really going to be, you know, paying attention to that because I wanna see how others are using it.
I’m by no means like the be all, end all expert on this. I just know how I’ve been using it and how much fun it’s been. So that’s kind of what the whole process is gonna be all about. We’re gonna be doing so much, so much fun stuff with it. Yeah, so the course, it goes October 1st through to the 7th, and that’s gonna be the entire week that it is. But the main course itself is gonna be that Monday, the second through the sixth. And we’re just gonna talk AI and talk about how this is revolutionizing our content creation.
I personally think that the way that we use AI is important. So I’m not using it as, you know, my like, it’s not writing my books for me. It’s not coming up with everything for me. I am playing around with Sudowrite a little bit. It might be in incorporated into the course by that point. I’m not quite sure yet because I’m still developing the course out. But it’s something that I’m just playing with and I know you and I were talking before we started, it slows me down actually. Like, Sudowrite is amazing. But here’s the problem. It’s like when you ideate with AI, now it’s like you’re creating part of a scene, you’re highlighting it and saying, Hey, expand on this thing. And you expand on it. It creates more information. You have to sift through that information, decide, is this stuff I wanna use or do I need to change it? Most of the time, I’m gonna tell you right now, you’re gonna need to change it and tweak it a little bit, but there’s golden nuggets in there that you go, Ooh, I really like how it described that thing, or brought out that point, or, you know, whatever. And so, it slows you down a little bit. Maybe it’ll get faster because as you use it, SudoWrite, from what I understand, remembers what you’re writing. It remembers your writing style, and so it tries to deliver information and scenes that are written more to your tone. But I don’t know. It’s something that I literally just started playing with yesterday, so there’s so many options. There’s so many cool ways to be able to utilize the technology that’s helping us to get unstuck. It’s helping us to do those outlines that everyone dreads. It’s helping us create book blurbs that everyone hates, you know, like, it’s helping us to create ads that are like selling books. There’s all sorts of ways that you can utilize AI technology and it’s been fun to play with. So if you come at it with that, this is fun to play with and that curiosity, I think you’re gonna be setting yourself up for major success down the road.
Jo: I’m really loving everything you said there. And because you are not using it to write a book for you, you are using it as a writing partner, like you said. To bounce ideas off, just like you would, yeah, a human. It’s just another aspect of doing that, which I think is really cool. Yeah, I like that.
Carissa: Right? You use tools like templates. You use tools like Scapple to be able to mind map. You use tools like your best friend going, I don’t know what to do in this scene. It’s no different from that really. It’s just that, that particular tool is there whenever you need it. You don’t have to wait for them to get off work or to wake up or you know?
Jo: People are very, very divided when it comes to AI and my approach is be curious and get informed because there are some huge generalizations out there, I think, and people who have very strong opinions about AI that may not necessarily be as informed as they could be. And so you are saying as you’re just starting to play around with Sudowrite, that your understanding is that over time it starts to recognize your writing style and will start to work in your favour a little bit with giving you ideas and that. Do you have, ’cause I know this is a big fear for a lot of people, do you have the fear that as you’re using this as a brainstorming tool and you’re feeding in information and it’s starting to learn your writing style, that other people will be able to steal your writing style because it’ll use that to further develop its algorithm of doing things? Is that a fear that sits with you at all or are you not concerned?
Carissa: First of all, that is so flattering if they would do that. Second of all, I tend not to go to fear if I can help it. Like we’re all human and we all kind of go to towards different fears. Like, my fear right now is that I suck at writing Romcoms because I’m halfway through this thing and I don’t wanna screw it up, right? But I’m not, I’m not afraid of people like, taking it. I’m not afraid of that happening. When we look at the overall, like the internet is vast, and if we think that they can’t take the books that we’ve already written and published and do the same thing, we’re kidding ourselves. Right? So when I’m using something like ChatGPT, or if I’m using something like Sudowrite, to me, it’s like, okay. It could mimic me for sure. But it’s not gonna have that specific idea that is in my head. It’s not gonna know where I’m truly trying to go with this. It’s all based off of my prompts. It’s all based off of the way that I’m trying to get it to do the thing I want it to do. So it’s not gonna create the story I’ve already been sitting here brewing about. And while it could, maybe it will get to the point where it creates wonderful stories, we are always gonna be creating something that is unique to us. We’re always gonna be creating something that’s from our soul, calling us out and wanting us to create it. And so I’m not scared of that at all. I feel like maybe we’ll have some growing pains where, you know, we have to have some laws enforced and things have to happen down the road. And that’s par for the course. That’s part of growth. And so we can’t always hold ourselves back from growth just because we’re scared of what could happen. We need to embrace like what happens if it goes really well? What if this speeds up my process? What if this makes my writing even better than I thought it could? What if it gives me some really cool ideas that I didn’t think of, and now I’ve just created a series that’s even more phenomenal than I thought it would be? That’s more what I try to veer towards. And, you know, every once in a while you still get stuck in those like, oh gosh, I hope this doesn’t suck. I hope I don’t screw this up, and people hate my characters, right? But at the same time, we can’t hold ourselves back from that type of growth and that type of evolution. This is an evolution in the way that we’re gonna start creating our books. It’s just how it’s working. And no amount of fear is gonna stop it.
Jo: Yeah, I tend to agree with you with that. And I think at the end of the day, nobody, no person, no AI is ever gonna be able to write your story. And you are an author, so you are going to be writing stories regardless of if there’s AI or there’s not AI, you’re still going to be writing these stories. So, yeah, I do think it’s something that we definitely need to be curious and we need to be open about, and we need to also keep in perspective too, that bad people are gonna do bad stuff. Right? So there are gonna be, you know-
Carissa: And they’re doing it now, pirate, even before AI.
Jo: Books are being pirated all the time. People are, you know, stealing other authors books, putting them under different names or writing trash or, yeah. Or using AI just as it is and then putting it out under other author’s names and—
Carissa: Right? What is that? That is crazy.
Jo: But it’s actually, that’s not new, you know, like, that’s not gonna change. That’s actually been around for a long time and people are going to unfortunately continue to do that. Yeah, this gives them another way of doing that and other tools to do that, I guess. Right? But I think if you’ve got a strong readership and you’ve got your connections with your readers, they’re going to know if a book is yours, if it’s written with your authentic voice and yeah.
Carissa: And I think that goes back around to that direct store too. When you have your direct store you’re controlling that narrative. So they could put as many weird things up on Amazon as they want, and as you’re fighting to get ’em taken down or disconnected from your Author Central or whatever, your store still has only your books. It’s not any of that other nonsense. Right? So you have that ability to control the narrative and all the books that you have and how you’re communicating with your readers. And you get to decide how they get to work with your books, right? So it kind of comes back full circle.
Jo: It does.
Carissa: I don’t think that we should be afraid of it, especially if we are working towards becoming the ultimate entrepreneurs that we are. Creative entrepreneurs. And having this become a true business and treating it like a business.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. I think you’re doing some really exciting things. And I first stumbled upon you actually through doing your Three-Day Plan Your Series Challenge, like, I don’t know, like a few years ago. But that’s actually how you first came into my sphere, like how I first learned about you. So yeah. So that was really cool. And I think we do need to be open-minded and we need to explore and be curious and then decide if it works for us or if it doesn’t. But you are literally saying that you’re primarily at this point, just using it to help you plan, to be that idea partner and brainstorm and that with.
Carissa: Absolutely. Yeah. And do some of the more tedious tasks that I don’t really wanna put a whole lot of brainpower in, like blog posts or social media posts. When I do do them, I can be like, hey, ChatGPT, here’s like three examples of stuff that I’ve written in the past. Create a new social media post that mirrors this sentimentality, help me out. And then it gives me some ideas. I edit it quick and off it goes. I don’t have to put a whole ton of thought into it, where normally they would take me 20 minutes, half an hour, whatever, to create a post that really is speaking to the same messaging or whatever. And so it just helps me to free up more time so that I’m not having to spend as much doing tasks that aren’t necessarily going to be… I don’t wanna make it sound like money is the only thing, but it’s not a money maker, right? When you’re putting a social media post, it’s that connection piece. And when you’re putting it out onto a social site that is, you know, throttling who gets to see you, it’s low on my sense of priorities at this point.
Jo: It’s using your time efficiently so you can put more of your energies and that into what really matters for you. For sure.
Carissa: I’d much rather be creating courses and writing books.
Jo: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you’ve got a really good deal I think too for the pre-launch of this course, for the rest of this month, for August, don’t you? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Carissa: Yeah, so in the past, my Plan Your Series Challenge was free when I launched it in October. This time I want to try to help people understand the value of it, and I know with AI it’s quite a polarizing thing anyway, so I don’t want the freebies, freebie people coming in and railing on it. So I’m like, I’m gonna put a price tag on it. It’s gonna be really low for the live launch. And so right now, like you said, we have a pre-launch pricing until the end of August. So it’s $27. You get the whole thing. You get lifetime access, you get to come to the Q and A, all the things, all the downloads, all the things. Then in September it’s gonna go up to $47 before the live launch. Once we are finished and like Preptober is underway, we’re now heading towards Nano. I’ll probably increase the pricing to $147, so FYI, if you’re interested, I would definitely hop in now, even if you don’t come to the live launch, even if you can’t come to the live launch. Everything’s gonna be inside my course platform, which is called Kajabi. So you’ll be able to have access to all the replays, the videos, all the things. So it’s gonna be a great opportunity for people to get it at a much lower price, but then know that the people who are there are, along with you, who are curious, who want to be there and check things out and test it, and just see how authors are utilizing it.
I’m just so looking forward to seeing how others are using it and see new ways that we can incorporate into the whole thing as well. Because for me, it’s been so much fun to play with AI, to play with ChatGPT mostly that, that’s been my biggest one, and Midjourney. But that’s for images. And so just developing out new story ideas and coming up with outlines that I would never have done before. Like I can go through and make the best outline myself where I have a chapter by chapter synopsis. But if my story starts to shift, which sometimes it does, I changed my ending three times in Midlife Wolf Mate. Three times! I can put in, like, I can have it go through my chapter, so like in the same chat I can do one chapter at a time. Say, here, gimme a five-sentence synopsis of this chapter. Okay, here’s the next chapter. Gimme a five-sentence chapter synopsis. Until I get to the point where I’m now stopped, and say, okay, what would you recommend as the remainder of this outline, if there are 30 chapters, let’s say? It’ll give me what it thinks the next like outline of the chapter, like how the story arc should look if you give it the right prompts. You know, talk about what the genre is and the whole nine yards. It’ll take a look at what you’ve already written and tell you like, well, this is what we would recommend for the rest of this story arc. And then you could look at it and go, huh, I didn’t even think about incorporating that. That’s really cool. Or, you know, whatever. And then you add it to your own outline.
It’s just, it’s so cool. It’s so cool because sometimes, you know, even as creatives and even as much as we know about story structure, sometimes it just helps to have another set of eyes take a look at it and go, hey, your story structure really could use this thing. And then you’re like, holy crap. Yeah, it could. Okay, I’ll add that in there. Cool. You know, so it’s just, it’s all the different ways that I’ve used it or tested it, it’s just been super fun to play around with.
Jo: That is so cool. It’s, it’s really good hearing that positivity right now and that, yeah.
Carissa: People get so, yeah, they get so polarized.
Jo: Yeah. It really is. So I am really pleading to my listeners right now, come at this with curiosity and with that willingness to be well-informed. Give it a go. I think we can only be in control of how we utilize these tools and so…
Carissa: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And even if you’re only curious about it and you never use ChatGPT ever. This course is gonna, like, I’ll have videos that are gonna walk people through the process of how it’s gonna work. So there will be screenshot type situations happening and people can understand how I’m using it, how the output happens, what it looks like. So even if they don’t do it for themselves, even if they don’t try to incorporate it, they’ve now informed themselves in a way that maybe they wouldn’t have even done for themselves. Yeah. You know, that’s, that’s powerful because knowledge is power and if you’re just gonna, you know, poo-poo it and say that this is nothing that we need to be worried about. I’m really concerned about that a little bit because this is not going away. You can just, no, you can tell, industry is using it everywhere. Like we’re talking on large scales. Industry is moving towards this in droves.
I work for a technology company as like a part-time thing that I’ve been doing for years, ’cause the company is so wonderful. The people are wonderful and I have a hard time letting them go. I probably should have let them go years ago, but I’m still working with them. And as one of my freelance clients back in the day when I was doing freelance social media, I started working with them. But what’s super cool about it is that because I’m working with their social media, I’m able to see what larger companies are doing. Like how they’re incorporating technology like ChatGPT and generative AI. And how it’s changing the face of just bigger, larger industries. And I’m like, yeah, authors, we can’t be thinking small here. We need to be listening to people like Joanna Penn who’s been talking about this for a very long time. Because I would wager if she was talking to Becca Syme, maybe she’s already done so, I’ll bet Futuristic is like her number one. It must be because she has been doing this for a long time.
Jo: Yeah, yeah. I feel like I have heard her say that maybe she’s quite high with the Futuristic and anybody that’s ever listened to Joanna Penn, or followed her knows that, you know, she has a heart of gold. She’s not doing anything that is going to…
Carissa: She blows my mind. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she blows my mind with the amount of knowledge she has on this industry and everything that she has done and studied and incorporated and taught. It’s incredible. Yeah. I wanna be her when I grow up.
Jo: I know, right? I know. Yeah. I feel that way. Yes. Absolutely. So that’s so exciting. You are doing so many phenomenal things.
Carissa: Oh, thank you.
Jo: We’re not gonna be able to squash down AI. Like, once these things are out of the box, they’re not going anywhere. It’s here to stay. So it does come down to us and how we are going to use these tools, remembering they’re tools and yeah, it shouldn’t change who we are innately as a person.
Carissa: Do you remember? Back in the day, like when websites first started coming out and people were talking about website stores, like Amazon was such a controversial thing back in the day. I guess the same thing, guys, people, we’ve had this same reaction to all new, big technologies that are coming out from the dawn of time. Like probably when we went from, you know, stone tablets to paper, people were freaking out, right? It’s just par for the course. This is the way that we incorporate new technology, there’s gonna be those early adopters. There’s gonna be, you know, the stragglers and eventually the rest of the world is going to come around to it. And it doesn’t have to be something you use all the time. It can just be something you use once in a while. Like if you’re stuck, use it and just have a chat with ChatGPT, because that’s the chat part, right?. And see if you can get yourself unstuck. Find a way to talk to it, that it gives you ideas about your story. It doesn’t even have to create the words for your story. You can just literally have a chat with it. It’s not going anywhere.
Jo: That’s so cool. So I hope my listeners really kind of jump on board with checking out your five day course then, or your week long course, because not only is it fantastic to prep for NaNoWriMo or your new series or whatever. Just to explore some of those tools and how they might or might not fit into your writing routine and things like that too.
Carissa: Absolutely. And even if you don’t have four books that you’re planning, like it says Four Books, Five Days, that’s because in my signature course, Rapid Release Roadmap, we focus on four books, right? Because that’s just a good editorial calendar and structure to be able to continue to get your books out there, build your backlist as quickly as you possibly can without going completely burn out crazy, right? And so if you only have one book that you want to create this year for this timeframe, that’s okay. You can just take a look at it and modify it for how you want to create your book or your series. Or if it’s not a series and it’s simply just a single book, that’s okay too. The tools are gonna make sense regardless of how you’re creating your books. It’s just that I would like to create things that are tied to other things that make sense as you move from one thing to the next thing, so that it’s not just like, okay, how do I have to figure out how to connect the dots with this? You know what I mean? But it’s very useful no matter what type of story you’re trying to create.
Jo: Yeah. That’s fantastic. That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much. I’m just so stoked to have you back on the show, and I know my head is just like popping with ideas now from everything from your Shopify to your Patreon, and to how you’re using or utilizing AI to help you with story structure and ideas and things like that. That’s really cool. So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all that.
Carissa: Always. Thank you for having me, Jo. It’s always such a pleasure to talk to you.
Jo: Here are some takeaways from today’s show:
1. Consider using Shopify to sell direct for its versatility with creating bundles, selling books and merch, connecting readers, and for taking back control of your author career.
2. Shopify works best when you have a backlist, but there is also power in starting off how you plan to go on.
3. People are divided about transferring reviews over to Shopify. Do what you feel is best.
4. Consider using Patreon as a replacement for connecting with readers through social media.
5. Get curious and informed about AI, have a play with it and consider how you can use it as a tool to help your writing and idea generation.
6. Bad people are going to do bad things with whatever tools are at their disposal, including AI. How you use it is up to you.
So I hope you enjoyed today’s episode and found yourself inspired in one way or the other, whether it’s to look at selling direct, or considering Shopify in lieu of other types of websites, or to experiment a bit with AI for idea generation and for world building with your stories.
I am always recommending Carissa’s courses because I have enrolled in so many of them myself, and she really is the real deal. She has a heart of gold and her courses are phenomenal, and they really do help elevate your author career when you follow them and spend the time and energy putting them into practice. So if you are like me and you want to sign up, actually I have already signed up, but if you are interested in signing up to her new upcoming course in October, Four Books, Five Days Course: Mastering AI Enhanced Series Planning, then I will have the link to do so in the show notes. It is an affiliate link. I am an affiliate of all of Carissa’s courses, I think, because I honestly do just think they’re phenomenal. So if you are one of these open-minded people who want to be curious and get informed about how AI can be a tool to help you plan your books, then I highly recommend that you join up now before the end of August because you get to join at the phenomenal price of only $27. In September, the price is going to go up to $47, and then after the actual course in October, it is increasing again.
So I personally, I’m not sure that I will use AI to plan any of my series, but I am certainly curious and have enrolled just to check it out myself. And because I really did get so much from her original Three-Day Plan Your Series Challenge way back in maybe 2020, before I had actually connected with Carissa. So, like I said, the link to that will be in the show notes. I’ll also have links to Carissa’s previous interviews on the show where she talks a little bit more towards manifesting your dream author career. And I’ll also put in the episode links to Becca Syme and Claire Taylor when they were on Alchemy for Authors, just because their names came up a lot in today’s interview in regards to Strengths Finders and the Enneagram and how we can utilize our strengths to build an author career that works for us.
I just wanna end with a big thank you again to all those who reached out after the last show. It really does mean the world to me. Thank you to Kathleen for buying me a few coffees. It was very, very appreciated. And of course, if you want to buy me a coffee, you can go to https://buymeacoffee.com/jobuer. That goes towards helping me put out more of these interviews and to keep writing and to do all this wonderful content creation for other authors and for readers and for everybody else.
So if you have enjoyed this episode, do reach out to me. That’s amazing. Leave a rating or a review that is always, always appreciated. Or tell another author, tell another writer, tell a friend. That would be fantastic too.
So there we are, my lovelies. I hope you enjoyed the show. Make sure you stick around for Episode 62 where I will be chatting with an amazing guest who is going to share all her tips and tricks for writing amazing blurbs! That is not one that you’re going to want to miss. But until then, my friends, I am wishing you a wonderful writing week ahead. Bye for now.
AI, Artificial Intelligence, author mindset, Plotting a Series, Plotting with AI, Selling Direct, Shopify