In this week’s episode of If I’m Being Honest, we sit down with USA Today bestselling author Russell Nohelty, founder of Hapitalist, to have a frank, unfiltered conversation about why writers and authors should start thinking outside the box when it comes to their careers. It starts with analyzing your publishing pathways, defining independence, and discovering that optionality is the real superpower in modern book publishing.

We get specific about the stuff that actually protects a long-term writing career: defining your non negotiables, spotting predatory publishing contracts, and insisting on basics like rights reversion and assignment clauses. Then we zoom out to the question most author marketing advice avoids: what does “enough” mean? Russell walks us through a simple exercise that exposes what many writers are really chasing, not fame, but time, peace, agency, and the ability to choose what you make next.

We also tackle the hard math behind “one book success,” why ads often require a deeper catalog, and what to do if you do not want to write a 10-book series. We talk signature series strategy, market expectations, and practical alternatives like speaking, partnerships, and building an ecosystem around nonfiction. The thread that ties it together is radical acceptance: tell the truth about what you want, what you can do, and what the market rewards, then build a strategy where joy sits at the center.

If you want a clearer, calmer approach to self-publishing, traditional publishing, and building a sustainable author platform, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a writer friend, and leave a review with your definition of “enough.”

About Russell Nohelty

Russell Nohelty is a USA Today best-selling author of 80 books, both fiction and nonfiction and the founder of Hapitalist, which helps entrepreneurs build their business without sacrificing their magic.

Learn more about Russel: https://www.russellnohelty.com/

Welcome And Why Russell’s Here

Joel 0:11

Hey everybody, welcome to If I’m Being Honest, Straight Talk About Book Publishing Promotion. My name is Joel Pitney. I’m your host, and I am super psyched to have have Russell Nohelty on the show today. Russell’s a USA Today best-selling author of 80 books, both fiction and nonfiction. And he’s the founder of Hapitalist, which I’m excited to talk to him about on this episode. And so welcome, Russell. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here. So I first uh met Russell because he was the co-founder of a conference called Writer MBA, which is no longer, but um we met in New Orleans, where I came and I was a sponsor and a speaker at the conference. Um and I just liked Russell’s overall vibe. And then we connected again at Author Nation in Las Vegas last year and um, you know, had a nice conversation. And so I wanted to kind of move things offline online. So I’m psyched to have you here today. I’m really happy to be here. It’s great. I’m excited, always excited to talk with you. So um, you know, I think one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, Russell, and I think would be relevant to our audience is sort of publishing pathways, right? Um, we’ve never had more publishing opportunities than we have today. Um, some people, you know, you go to Author Nation and you have people saying that traditional publishing is dead and indie publishing is the only way to go. And then you go into the non into the traditional publishing world, and people still sort of look askance at self-publishing, and there’s all kinds of assumptions out there. So you seem to be someone who’s kind of been around the block quite a few times and uh tend to be, you know, a fierce advocate for author independence. So I want to talk to you about, you know, how do you see that landscape today? What do you think is what do you think is happening and what do you think is the way to go?

Russell 1:57

I mean, I think that saying you won’t do anything or you will definitely do something is dumb. I think that you will saying you will never do something is dumb. I’ll tell you that, like, I’ve read books with AI. Uh, I and I’ve written a lot of books without AI. And you do you know how many times you have to say the same stupid thing in your career? Like, I’ve written 80 books. People still expect me to like blow up the same three realms every time I do a series. How many times can I say the fairy realm blows up before like like like I built a model based on my own work and I use that to like write a book. Now, is that like wrong or is that bad? I don’t know, dude, but like to say you wouldn’t do the same thing, like write 80 books first, write the same frigging blog post a dozen times, and then still have people ask questions about it, be like, oh my god, I gotta write that blog post again, and be like, and not like the the the if I had to write one more listicle in my life, I’m gonna like screen.

Stop Making Permanent Publishing Rules

Russell 3:05

Right. So I’m not saying that like one is good or bad. What I am saying is like to say you will never do something is dumb because you do not know the scenario by which you will do something. You might sell your catalog to a publisher at one day, even if you are fiercely self-publishing. You know, I’ll bet like uh I’m trying to think of like a like the who, maybe the who, I don’t know. Metallica, I’m did it, I believe, like didn’t think they were gonna sell their entire masters, but then someone gave them like a hundred million dollars. And they’re like, okay, well, I’m gonna do it then. And like you don’t know the conditions that exist in your future, and so to make a definitive statement, and I’ve been as guilty as this as anyone else, to make a definitive statement about anything is uh ridiculous. Right. You know, and what ends up happening is we say, I’m going indie. And then you’re like, well, I don’t know, like what if Hashet offered you seven figures for your first book? Are you really saying you’re going indie? Like, what if you go indie and like after the third book, they pull your books because they didn’t sell? Like, are you still gonna go with the publisher? There’s just so much, it’s so hard to do this work, right? And so many people get locked in. I used to work in comics. I mean, I still work in comics, but like I used to be pretty exclusively comics. People would be like, I’m a comic book writer. I’m like, dude, you are never gonna make a living as a comic book writer because nobody makes a living as just like one kind of writer. You do other stuff, and like doing other stuff makes you excited to do other stuff. Right. And like I’ve interviewed hundreds of creators now on my show and um both of my shows. And for I got really interested in the idea of like, how do you keep doing this for 20 years? And it took about 10 episodes before I was like, well, the answer is just literally every person said the exact same thing, which was the ability to burn it down and build something else that you are excited about is what defines it, uh what’s what separates a five-year career from a 50-year career. And I just I just like I don’t know what I’m gonna have to burn down tomorrow. Did I think I was gonna burn down my conference about two years after starting it? No. Why would I do that? Like, why would I start a conference thinking that like it would not work for like that’s ridiculous thing? Like you always start it with the best of intentions and then life happens. And you’re like, I don’t know, dude. Like, I can’t do this another year if we’re just gonna like be a uh if we’re not gonna like grow. Or like, oh, it’s been two years. I want to do something else with my life, or like I want to like write a movie or do another thing. And like we should always be able to have optionality, and that is what I believe. I’ve signed 50 publishing deals in my career. I have or more than 50 at this point. Like, I’ve released like tons of books. I’ve I’ve made books, I’ve pulled them down, I’ve done I’ve done all of this stuff. And like I know better than anyone that the mercurial winds of money and the muse are fleeting and fickle, and you do not want to say you’ll do any, you’ll never do something. Because it’s almost a guarantee that whatever you say you will not do is a thing that you will do.

Joel 6:39

Right. No, it’s interesting because you want to figure out, well, what it what are your goals, right? What do you, what are you in this for? What do you, what are you doing? And I I think a lot of people start off their path to writing a book or being a writer with a more superficial goal that they think that they have, and then they pretty quickly find out that maybe that goal doesn’t satisfy them if they achieve that goal or maybe don’t achieve that goal, and then and then the then they kind of are confronted with a deeper question, which is, you know, how do I how do I move this from one book to five books? How do I go from a five-year to a 50-year career? Right.

Russell 7:14

What if I don’t like writing? Right. If I don’t like writing novels? What if people don’t attract aren’t attracted to like this book? What if publishers don’t want this kind of book? Do I indie publish this book that I care about, or do I write something more for a publisher? Like, do I make comics? Do I make games? Do I make all of this stuff? Like you’re we spend so much time thinking I’m a book writer or I’m X kind of writer that we try to jam ideas into whatever box we have. But like, dude, some ideas aren’t books. They’re games or they’re soup recipes or they’re tarot. Podcasts or pieces like that. Yeah. And some genres are just better, like more popular in others in in different places. Like, I would not tell, well, except for that, like now they’re having it’s like having its moment. Like horror’s having a big moment in book publishing. But like in general, if you want to write a horror thing, make a movie or like make a podcast. And like you’re just they’re more popular in that genre. I don’t want that to be the case. I would love for like horror books to be as popular as I want them to be, as like I see them as being. But like that is just not reality. And either you can look at reality and say, well, I’m gonna make this book, and maybe it’s not gonna be that successful, so I’m gonna lower my expectations. So you say, I want to make this real popular, maybe I make it an audio drama or an actual play podcast or a movie or something. Like there is a there is something for every project, but like we are thinking way too small. And obviously, we’re having honestly, we’re having the wrong conversation about everything.

Joel 8:56

Right. That makes sense. Well, and I I can say from my own personal experience as a writer, I remember, you know, I got my start writing for magazines and journalism. And I remember when I um I had a friend of mine suggest, hey, you should try, you should check out ghostwriting. I think you might like it. It’s a great way to make a living as a writer. And I remember at first I was very, I was very, I kind of looked down on it. I’m like, well, why would I ever do that? You know, and I I had that moment that you’re talking about, which is I wouldn’t do that. I I want to write my own things. I mean, you know, and and I remember I I sort of got an opportunity to do my first ghostwriting gig sort of happenstance. And I enjoyed it, but I still thought of it as sort of like this second thing. And then over the years, the more ghostwriting books I’ve done, the more I’ve started to realize that I actually just really enjoy the craft of taking a story, whether it’s mine or someone else’s, and turning it into something. Yeah. So here’s the thing is And it’s changed for me. I’ve it’s opened up new horizons and and I don’t think of myself as any less than anymore. I used to. Yeah.

Russell 9:58

So what I always say is like, are you sure you like writing? Because not you. But like someone’s like, no, no, one, the royal. Yeah. Because like if you like writing, then like, why do you care how you write? And if you really care about fantasy, then like you should be able to explore

Non Negotiables And Contract Red Lines

Russell 10:20

all kinds of fantasy. Right. If you like writing, you should be able to explore a wide range of writing, right? But like if you want to be a fantasy writer, the world is very narrow for you comparatively to being a writer or being a novelist or being whatever X, Y, and Z other thing. And like what I think you should do is make a list of non-negotiables and then compromise on everything else. Uh-huh. So, what are what are what are the non-negotiables for you? So I will, ooh, this is a good question. Because I I mean, I’ve they’ve been less and less and less and less over time. So what I I want, okay, so I can tell you about a contract. I will not sign a contract for anything that I’m doing more than a short story with perpetual rights. I just won’t do it. Like, I won’t, I won’t sign a contract unless I have at least the ability to publish it after a certain time myself. Okay. I won’t sign a contract if there’s not an assignment clause, which means if someone’s, if someone goes bankrupt, if someone like close, if someone’s door closes or yada yada, yada, yada, yada, I get the rights back. And that’s because I’ve seen so many things in my career. And that’s why I haven’t signed 200 contracts in my life. Because most contracts suck. And that’s not my fault. I’m not the I would love to sign every contract. But like when you send me a contract that is dumb, and then you refuse to admit that it’s dumb, I go, Well, are you just dumb? Are you dumb or predatory? Which one of the two things has to be true. Like, either you know what’s happening and you’re trying to tell me that like I should sign this contract that is predatory, or you don’t know what you’re doing. And either way, I don’t want to be in business with you. It’s kind of like the uh the Brown MMs thing, where it’s like, yes, that’s a stupid writer, but the reason why the Brown MMs thing was in their contract is because if if if I think it was Motley Crue, if they couldn’t, or guns and raises, if someone couldn’t read the contract detailed enough to pick up the Brown MMs, then they’re not gonna be able to figure out all the pyrotechnics that are that are that are done too. It’s like it’s its own self-fulfilling prophecy.

Joel 12:41

Yeah. Well, so I, you know, that’s kind of a I guess on a related note. So you’ve talked about, you know, non-negotiables, optionality as authors. Um, you know, a lot of people that I talk to and a lot of people who listen to this show uh are kind of getting, they tend to be getting their start. And and I think uh one of the questions that I always try to encourage people to ask, in addition to what are their, you know, why are they doing this? Right. Their goals is what does success look like? How do you judge success? And I’m curious, how how does that work for you? I mean, you’ve sounds like you’ve done traditional publishing, you’ve done indie publishing, you’ve done all

Defining Success As Enough

Joel 13:20

kinds of different things. When you’re thinking about, when you’re thinking about your career right now, how do you define success?

Russell 13:26

I mean, I retired like two years ago. So like every day I get to do the thing that I want to do, and this is what I want to do. So I ask people, so I do a lot of coaching with at Hapitalist, and I ask people one of the first questions is like, what does enough mean? Or like, what does it mean when you win? And it’s okay, so we can do an exercise if you’ll if you’ll humor me. Yeah, humor. I I shall humor you. Okay, so um you have won the game. You can do anything tomorrow that we can do as humans. You can go to the moon, but you can’t go to Mars. You can um propose to Shania Twain, but you can’t force her to marry you. Like, does that make sense? Yeah. You can do anything. You can do anything.

Joel 14:15

You can do anything within the constraints of reality. Right. What time is humans’ reality?

Russell 14:19

Yes. So what time do you wake up? Are like literally or in this in this scenario. Like you have won the game. You can do anything you want tomorrow. When do you wake up? 7 30. Great. What do you do first? Um meditate. Awesome. Okay, so we finished meditating. What time is it now? Uh 8 or 8.30. Okay, all right. Let’s say 8 30. What do you do then?

Joel 14:47

Um I go and I play with my son. Amazing. Okay, how long do you play with your son? Uh depends on his time, his his his appetite for play, but you know, probably about an hour. Sure. Okay, so it’s like 9 30.

Russell 15:02

You haven’t eaten yet. Are you gonna get breakfast at any point?

Joel 15:05

Or are you No, I’m not a breakfast person.

Russell 15:06

Same, same. Okay, so it’s 9 30. What do you do then? Uh, I probably go for a walk. Awesome. All right. So another hour for a walk, 10 30, 11 o’clock, roughly. Like you okay, so let’s just say 11. What do you do now? What’s the next so we don’t have to keep going to this, but like like that was the most banal thing that you could possibly do. Like, if you told someone what you did in that day, people would yawn. Yeah. But like, and yet every time I do this exercise, the same thing happens, which is that you just want to do, you want to hang uh meditate, hang out with your son, hang out with your loved ones, eat some food, like not be rushed. And like we can all have that. We all of us can have that. We can’t necessarily all like like go to the moon, right? Because that’s like a $50 million endeavor. But like, we can like all of us can wake up and like meditate and hang out with our son. Like, right? I mean, I mean uh assuming that that is wind conditions.

Joel 16:13

The basic, the, the basic, the basic building blocks of a life are all sitting there. Right.

Russell 16:18

And nobody ever set takes me up on the moon. No one ever proposes to Shania Twain. No one proposes to anyone. Because, like, that is not what people want in their their lives. What they want in their lives when they win is the feeling of contentment, of peace, of agency, that they can do whatever they want to do, that they can like follow their whims, which goes back to the thing we say, because like what happens when you say, I’m a writer, I’m writing this series, yeah, is eventually you get trapped by it. And you start say what happens is you start saying, Oh my God, I have to keep writing this series. And that is because what you are trying to do first is you are trying to wedge this is your time. You’re trying to wedge your free time and you put books in there. You’re like, great, books are in there now. This isn’t actually free time. This is just like my time. And if you don’t buttress all of these things, you can take the books out and make it anything you want. You then are just going to be working for another uh uh uh you’re just gonna be working for another uh paycheck. You’re just gonna be doing that. You have what we really are trying to do is like create the gap so we can do whatever we want. Right now that’s books. But like tomorrow, it might not be books. So why would you force your what so why would you like make books the thing that’s in there? Because you might want to do music, you might want to do some other thing. Like, I don’t know what your time. You might want to start a daycare.

Speaker 1 17:50

I don’t know.

Russell 17:51

But like, but like if you don’t buttress it, if you don’t allow yourself to do whatever, then you’re gonna be stuck doing that thing and you’re gonna hate your life again. So, like, the what I think of when I think of success is how much time is your own. But that’s also because my main thing is agency and freedom. So, like, as an eight and a challenger, like what I want to have is the freedom to do whatever. I will burn down my life a thousand times to be able to do what I want to do. I will leave millions and millions and millions of dollars on the table to like do what I want to do. Right. And whenever someone says something like you should charge more, you should do X, you should do Y, I say why. Because then you can do whatever you want. And I’m like, I spent this year like creating a group coaching program, making a weird thing called Hapitalist, and like building a tarot deck. What part of you thinks that I don’t do what I want whenever I want anyway?

Joel 18:52

Right. Right. So do you is that the way you’ve been from the very beginning, Russell? Is that or is that something that you’ve sort of earned, you know, through the school of hard knocks?

Russell 19:04

I mean, I think that what I thought, I’ve been as guilty as this is anyone. I thought that doing X would would save me, would would satiate me. Like if I made X amount of money, if I wrote this amount of books, if I did an X, Y, and Z, if I like had a conference, if I had a book, if I had a course, if I had a this, if I had a that. And the end of the day, none of it satisfied me. I got it all.

unknown 19:29

Right.

Russell 19:29

Like, I mean, except for like uh maybe making it being like a seven-figure author and being like a known on a street corner, but like I don’t want to know that. I don’t want that to happen. Um, like I pretty much got everything that I’ve ever wanted in my life. And like none of it made me happy. And so, like, how many times does that happen before you’re like, well, maybe it’s not the thing, maybe it’s the X, maybe it’s a different thing, maybe it’s yada yadda yadda yadda yada. You know, again, it’s like I also, when I do this exercise, don’t go to go go to space. And I also don’t like Mary Shania Twain or propose to them. Like, my my thing is also very banal. It’s just that I know that my level of success is banal. And like what I want is just to sit at peace. And most people can’t sit at peace because their certain central nervous system is being triggered every two seconds, flipping between boredom and anxiety. And like, I know that that’s like the trick. That’s the trick. You have to like unchrip your nervous system, and then you can just like not be happy with any amount of money, but like it doesn’t take much to have enough for anyone. Right. And if you don’t know what enough means, then you can never figure out whether you have enough.

Joel 20:58

Yeah, I mean, uh it’s what what I what I hear when you’re speaking about this is kind of stripping stripping away the superficial motives and getting to what are your deeper drivers. Because I think a lot of people aren’t aware of their deeper drivers, you know, whether we’re just talking about in life with a capital L or if we’re talking about a writing career or authors, or, you know, how you choose to spend in how you choose to spend your time. Um, and so you’re not connected, you’re you’re being driven by something you think will get you something, but then you realize at some point that what you really want is deeper than that. And the route you chose to get there is less important than getting there.

Russell 21:36

Yeah. So whatever the book that that sustains you now is not gonna sell forever. Right. And even a seven figure author, like that like sells their whole series, like very rarely is it the series that started their career that like sold. That’s the one that gets them to seven figures. Right. So, like given that, you’re always gonna have to write another book. You’re gonna have to write another book. And like Like, do you want to get to write another book or do you want to have to write another book? And most people that I know have gone through the part where

From Having To Write To Getting To

Russell 22:10

they had to write another book. The ones that are happy and content get to write another book. You don’t have to do anything.

Joel 22:19

Right. All right. So here you are, you know, let’s imagine you’re coaching, you’re, you know, you’re coaching, you’re coaching my audience, right? And someone and you’re talking to someone who is they’re they’re in the middle of writing their first book. How do you get to getting to write another book from where they are, as opposed to having to write another book? Starting from scratch.

Russell 22:45

Okay, so somebody comes to me and you’re gonna have to play this character so we can go back and forth.

Joel 22:50

I’m happy to play the character.

Russell 22:51

So I would say so. First I would say, okay, great. Like what what is the genre of the book? Nonfiction. Awesome. Okay, so nonfiction self-help, nonfiction memoir, like what kind of nonfiction?

Joel 23:04

It’s kind of a hybrid between I would uh between memoir and and self-help.

Russell 23:09

Okay. So what so there’s two ways that you can that that you can make a career as an author with like a nonfiction book. You can be chicken soup for the teenage soul, and we can do a signature series, or you can build out a like a coaching or some other kind of business behind it. Which of those two things do you want to do?

Joel 23:30

Uh more the chicken soup one. Okay. Writing multiple books as opposed to creating a platform to monetize one book.

Russell 23:40

Sure. Okay, great. So what you’re gonna have to do is write a signature series, then there’s a chicken soup for the teenage. So there’s like a million. There’s like a million of them, but like chicken soup is the one that I always go to because like um it’s the one at the top of my brain. So what I remember from growing up. Yeah. Um so what so a signature series is a book that is roughly a million words across roughly 10 books. Now, here’s why you need to do that. First, you are probably not gonna break even on ads until book four of a series. Okay, you are not gonna like you’ll be it’ll be very unlikely for you to break even on only books from fewer than four. Okay. So, and now there’s a lot of ways to write a signature series. You can use the same character, you can do a serial, you can do an anthology series with a bunch of different kinds of books in it, a lot of chicken soup for the teenage soul. Um, but the the the rule is they all have to deliver the same feeling as you’re reading it.

The Signature Series Reality Check

Russell 24:50

So the same person has to want to keep going in that series. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. Okay. So now that I’ve told you that that that that is the most likely path to success, how do you feel about it? I don’t want to do that. Yeah. Most people don’t. So that’s okay. That’s great. Okay. So um now we talk about like what do we do? So what do we do? How many books in a series do you want to write? Just one? Just want to write this one book?

Joel 25:19

Probably it would be less serial and more same genre.

unknown 25:26

Okay.

Joel 25:27

Related.

Russell 25:28

Okay. And probably three. Yeah. Okay. So we’ll see. Over what time horizon, too, because this is the part, this is this is this is an important thing. Like over what time horizon? I can do about a book a year. Okay. So you are you have put many, many, many constraints on this. Yes. We agree. So that so what are your three to five red red lines that you will not cross?

Joel 25:56

Uh can you define red lines?

Russell 25:58

Sure. So um I’ll um I’m gonna take a fiction example if I might. Yeah, yeah, go for it. Let’s do I’m gonna do paranormal, cozy mystery. So if you write a paranormal, cozy mystery, you should probably have the of a a character who is either in their late 20s or uh or uh uh or middle-aged um female. They should probably create uh be a uh uh own, they should probably be going to a new town or back to their town. They should probably then be either gifted or open a bookstore, a coffee shop, a bake shop or or uh or uh well the I said bake shop, one of those three things. Coffee shop, a tea shop, right? Something in those things. So that is not to say that you can’t make a 45-year-old man who owns a gun shop the person for your cozy mystery. What I would say is that is a much better scenario for like a thriller. Right because the people that read that book, they have expectations. So in that scenario, are there I mean, look, in your like a memoir, how to is going to probably need to lean more on how to than memoir in order to like sell. Yep. So are you okay with that line?

Joel 27:27

Yes, as long as it’s story driven. Yeah.

Russell 27:30

Okay. So I think of a book like Lady’s Handbook to Her Mysterious Illness, which is like this this woman who is trying to track down why she feels so bad, and along the way, she like interviews doctors and interviews things, and it’s also like a combination of her thing.

Joel 27:47

Yes, that’s my favorite, that’s my favorite style of book.

Russell 27:50

Yeah, okay. Great. So now this is the problem, Joel. You don’t want to build a business, you don’t want to write a long series. Yes. And you don’t want to create some sort of other kind of thing behind your book.

Joel 28:09

Well, I’d be we could we we can explore that door. Okay, great.

Russell 28:13

Okay, so there’s a lot of things we can do about with with like this idea. Um, so you can do other merchandise kind of products. Like I have done tarot decks, I have done comics, I have done, I have done um uh like pins and such and like other kinds of merch that you can then sell to bundle things and workbook. Right. Um, you can go and sp use speak and like use the book as like the methodology for what you’re speaking about. Right. You could, I mean, you could get a residency somewhere and like that’s the thing that you like that you’re gonna talk about for that. Right. Um, do any of those feel better than others?

Joel 28:57

Probably, yeah. I mean, now that we start to break it down, door number two, door number two probably has more optionality for me. Sure. Yeah. It’s more exciting for me uh because there’s a little more creativity than just feeling like I have to write a bunch of books in a series. Yeah. Because one of my red lines, you know, now that you’re explaining that is, and you know, just for our audience, just so everyone knows, we’re Russell’s giving me, we’re theoretically coaching, although we are also using me. So um, we’re kind of going through this process, which I I’m hoping everybody else can see themselves in me a little bit. Um, but one of my red lines would be I don’t want to feel like I have to write something that doesn’t interest me.

Russell 29:35

Yeah. I mean, that’s a that’s a big one. Most people, but most people feel similarly to that. And unfortunately, if you rely on just books and not a long series of books, you don’t have enough time, right? You have to kind of move to the market instead of letting the market move to you over time.

Joel 29:53

Well, and I think this is, I think one of the universal messages I’m hearing from you. And this is something that, you know, uh that Sadie, who’s my co-host, you know, on some episodes, and I are always talking to authors about. And every time I go to a conference and meet people, everybody kind of echoes the same thing. You don’t make, you can’t make a living as a writer on one book. You just can’t.

Russell 30:14

Well, yeah. So you have people like Joan Didion, who they did a lot of essays in magazines, and like you have people that like were newspaper reporters and such and like wrote a book. Yep. But yes, it’s very hard because for a very specific reason. So let’s say your book costs $10, and you’re self-publishing it, and you uh and uh you uh you put it at $10. I guess it’s $12 now that the top is I’m gonna do $10 because it’s easier. Yeah, you make 70% of that, that’s $7. You have to sell 14,000 copies of that book in order to make $100,000. Now, it’s gonna cost you a bunch of money to like get people excited about that book. So it’s very like that, this is what makes it hard. So there’s some ways that make it easy. For instance, I might take that lady’s handbook for her mysterious illness for a minute. Like she can go and speak at women’s groups, she can go speak at universities, she can go speak in many, many, many areas um that uh that uh would either pay her or more likely they would they would order a gross of books for and she would then speak on because that’s like the easiest way to get booked at something. It’s like you say, Oh, I want you, uh you’re the University of Chicago, buy a thousand copies of my books for your audience, I’ll come for free. And like you could then just distribute them all to the people that are there. Right. Like, uh if you’ve ever been to like a um a David Sidaris like like thing. Yeah, I saw him last year.

Joel 31:49

I saw him come and speak. Yeah.

Russell 31:50

Yeah, it’s like you pay $50, you hear him speak, and you get a copy of the book a lot of the time. Like that doesn’t do it every time, but like that’s his general thing. So like you’re like, you get the book, and like, so he gets paid, you get the book, and like it’s it’s like uh it feels great for everyone because you’re like, wow, I just got a free David Siddara’s book, but you didn’t, just the host of the thing bought the David Siddara’s book and you bought it as part of your entrance to the thing. So, like, there’s all sorts of ways that you can make money on this doing that. And like you what I would say is, okay, so like we need to make a nexus of your book in the middle. Yeah. What kinds of places can you partner with? Yeah. Can it be like gift shops? Is it like if you’re if you’re making a book about yarn, you could probably go to like all sorts of like knitting shops in different cities. You can start doing like, you can start going to farmers markets and like swap meets and all of this stuff that would allow you to get in front of people with the books, but it would also allow you to partner with people who crochet. Maybe like you can create maybe you can create like a tool, like in different crochet needles that are specific to your world. Like, I don’t know what those things are, but like it’s or it becomes organic and it allows you to say, okay, here’s some so this is what happened

Selling One Book With Partnerships

Russell 33:15

to me. I stopped writing fiction, largely writing fiction, unless like I’m doing it for someone else under contract, because I don’t like the actions that it takes to write to make fiction sell. I like the actions that make nonfiction sell. Like this is this is a terrible way to sell fiction. But like it’s a great way to sell coaching and and uh and and and like courses and other stuff and other kinds of modalities because the odds that you’re gonna like it’s like all you need is one person to make a decent um to make this worthwhile to like come out of it. So your if you really love data and ads and all of that stuff, maybe doing fiction will work for you. I personally don’t like talking about my work. I like talking about your work while attention is on me, which is why coaching is great. I don’t have to talk about me ever. I can talk about you. Right. And people have an in it have a um have an infinite capacity to deal with themselves. Right. Does that make sense? Is any of them I like?

Joel 34:20

No, no, this is fabulous, Russell. And I, you know, it’s I I I I love the inquiry that you’re going down. And I, you know, I I hope people aren’t getting lost in the detail of this because we’re speaking in theoreticals, but I think, you know, to pull out some universal messages from what you’re saying, um, I mean, your number one, your number one goal when you’re helping an author is optionality, right? So you you want to give them to the optionality to build a the career, the writing career that they want.

Russell 34:48

Actually, the number one thing I want from an author when I’m coaching is radical acceptance. Okay. That’s what I want. Like that’s the number one thing. We have a the useful joy loop, the first thing is attunement, and the biggest part of attunement is like radical acceptance, which is where uh self-acceptance, other acceptance, life acceptance. Yeah. If you don’t like it, if you don’t like writing books, you should know that you don’t like writing books, and then we can work from there. Right. If you know that everyone wants to read mafia romance, you can and like you’re you don’t want to write anything with sex at all, and you don’t even like romance, like it’s gonna be real hard for you if you’re not writing thriller. Right. Just it is. I don’t mean I think like you don’t have to write thriller, but like you have to know that thing. And then like if you don’t have a year to like do X, Y, and Z and write a book, you shouldn’t write a book. Right. If you need money now, you should have written a book two years ago. And also it’s a terrible way to like make money to like to like make money now is to release a book. Right. So it’s like if you don’t have those three things, when you have those three things, then we can say, okay, now we can make a plan. We can say, okay, now the most important thing is that you don’t stop undercutting yourself by saying no. We talked about that thing. So if we are looking at the at the at like the the your career, and we say, okay, we have your red lines. You don’t want to write things you don’t want to do. You you like X, Y, and Z genre, we can say, okay, now everything that’s not those things, those are your no’s. Like we have to move to market on. We have to like have you stop saying no to yourself and to opportunities before the universe says no for you, or because before capitalism says no for you, or before like the market says no for you. Like you need to understand that like you need to not necessarily say yes. I’m not saying you see yes to everything, but I’m saying like if something is, if you really want to write a thriller, then like there are rules to go to a thriller. They shouldn’t spend a hundred pages at a bake sale. Unless like the bake sale is the thriller part of it. Right. You know, like if you’re writing a fantasy book, dude, like put dragons in it. You should put dragons in it. Unless you have a uh have an affinity, unless you have a reason to not put dragons in your thing, there should always be a dragon because that’s the most popular thing in fantasy. If you can’t have a dragon, then can you bring in public domain fairy tales or like something else? Like, can you bring in magic of some like you there are things you can do to bring things to market which will not destroy the thing you’re trying to make? And the thing with the red lines is like, no, there can’t be dragons. Okay, cool. So we’re not gonna put dragons in it. You accept that it’s gonna be less popular then. And they’re like, I don’t, I don’t accept that. Well I don’t, it’s gonna be the odds of it. Okay, so you have to believe

Radical Acceptance And Market Fit

Russell 38:10

the odds of success are gonna go down. I don’t believe that either. Well, then we can’t work together because like I’m here to help you make the most successful product possible. I’m I’m here to help you have the most successful career possible. Right. But I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it. I’m I will enable all your dumb ideas, but you have to look at this and say the odds of success without dragons are considerably less. If you can’t do that, you gotta start from reality. Yep. Right, which is all radical acceptance is. It’s not being okay with how the universe is, it’s just saying, well, if I have a mythological fantasy book and it doesn’t have dragons, maybe I should like make it a lit RPG then. Yeah. Oh, you don’t want to make it a lit RPG. Well, I don’t like eventually it gets exhausting. And when it gets exhausting is when I cut custom customer and when I cut clients off.

Joel 39:07

Because I’m like, this is not gonna work. Well, you know, I uh just to give a personal example of this, I remember I was writing a uh, I I was writing a you know, memoir kind of personal development is my is my space. And so I had developed a book proposal and I’d written about half of a manuscript that I wanted to start pitching, right? Um and it was on a it was about an experience in my life where I was part of a spiritual community, right? And uh the spiritual community was, you know, it was very interesting and bizarre and quirky and amazing and all kinds of stuff. And I I remember when I started when I developed the book proposal to pitch to an agent, I had this experience of realizing if this is gonna be successful, I’m gonna have to commit to making this my life, the topic. I can’t just write this one book about this story and have it be out there. I have to become like the the guy who talks about this topic for the next five to ten years, if not longer. And I’ve got to go everywhere, I’ve got to only write about this. And I I had a moment, which I think would be a moment of radical acceptance where I realized I don’t want to do that.

Russell 40:23

Yeah. Or at least you’re gonna have to do it while that launch is happening.

Joel 40:26

Well, yeah. Well, but and I but I also know I know that in this space, you know, to do things long term, you kind of you need to build a brand that’s gonna last for quite a while. And so I just decided that that’s not what I wanted. I I was interested, I had I had moved on in my life, and so I was it was a fascinating story about a different part of my life, but I needed to figure out if I wanted to have my own voice on this that I could do in the long term, I needed to write about something that could capture my interest in the present and possibly the future for longer.

Russell 40:53

And so I could Oh, sorry. So what I would say, and just like to reframe that, is you could be Michael Pollan or Malcolm Gladwell. Like they have the same, they have the same hobby horse that they keep coming back to. Christopher Nolan has the same hobby horse that they come back to, even though they make radically different things. This is the thing about the about the feeling. Okay, like you know what you’re gonna get from a Michael Pollan book, you know what you’re going to get from a like Malcolm Gladwell book. It’s going to be different topics, right? But like Corey Doctoro is always gonna do the same thing. It’s the same, like even though his new book is about insidification, his whole career is about insidification, like in retrospect. It’s all like the hobby horse of like tech or th or X, Y, and Z. Right. So it’s possible that you could have taken this spiritual thing that you’re doing and threaded into another book about a different topic or da-da-da-da-da. No, that’s that’s true. Yeah. Yeah. But you would have to at least have it be a part of your oeuvre. It’d have to be like, okay, we’ll talk like um a quite defining piece. Right. Right.

Joel 42:04

Yeah. Like in the way that Michael Pollan got his start, you know, he omnivore’s dilemma is the one that really made it big, you know. Right. And so he had to go out there and talk about vegetarianism a lot, you know?

unknown 42:14

Yeah.

Joel 42:14

That was like until he decided to talk about psychedelics.

Russell 42:17

Yeah. On the other side, then he you have like cultish, which is like that you can’t write a book called Cultish and not talk about cults. You just can’t. Like, it’s an incredible book, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s a great book. But like the what we so yes, like I agree with you.

Joel 42:33

And she turned it into a podcast. That’s what she did. She didn’t write another book, she turned that into a podcast. Yeah.

Russell 42:38

And now a like a successful Substack and a successful all sorts of other stuff. Like um,

Your Breakout Book Can Trap You

Russell 42:45

all but you you are smart in recognizing that like that is not the thing you want to potentially be your hobby. You have to at least, so what I will say is you have to at least say this could be the breakout book, and I don’t want this to be my breakout book. Like that I agree with you, because like Cultish may not have been the breakout book. But if it was the breakout book, then that would be the thing they were known for their whole their whole life. It doesn’t matter what what like the other stuff is, like Epre Love will always be Elizabeth Gilbert’s book. Like it doesn’t matter that she’s written amazing other books that I adore. Like she’s like, she’s always gonna be E Pre Love. Because like it was the hit that like everyone know her, knew her for.

Joel 43:40

Yep. No, that this is beautiful. And I and I hope every again, you know, um Russell and I have have gone down a very personal rabbit hole here, but I want to do this. I, you know, I think we’re trying to do this exercise. So we’re I’m hoping that people can see themselves in what we’re speaking about, even though we’re in details. And so what I think is interesting for Me personally, in what you said, Russell, is that you know, this book that I decided I didn’t want to be a breakout book, you know, should I be so fortunate, um, is something I know I may come back to. But it’s not where I want to build. Yeah. Right. It’s something that if I build the other one and I have some success there and I’m ready to publish this other one, which is related enough because it’s my voice, and my voice is I have a unique voice, then I may come back to it. But it’s it’s interesting to think about it in in the framework you provided.

Russell 44:33

Did you ever see Deliver Us from Nowhere, Deliver Me From Nowhere, the Bruce Springsteen documentary?

Joel 44:39

Oh, no, no, but I I didn’t I I read the memoir.

Russell 44:42

Like, so there’s a great there’s I I don’t think the the the um the uh filmmakers who made the movie knew what they were movie they were making. Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any less fascinating. So the movie, the movie and the book is about the time in Bruce Springsteen’s life where he was making the um the Born in the USA album. Yep. While he was making Nebraska. And no matter what, he kept getting like, oh my God, this book, this is gonna be number one, like this is gonna change your life. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And something kept drawing him back to Nebraska.

unknown 45:20

Okay.

Russell 45:21

And it’s because he knew he could never make Nebraska again. Like that’s the only time in his life he would be able to make Nebraska because he knew that like this was gonna be a massive hit because everyone was telling him. And if he didn’t make Nebraska, then in that moment, then maybe he could come back and make a different album. But like he could never make that album would not slot in for a very, very, very long time after that. And you can tell, like, now he does a lot more folky stuff and he has for the last 20 years. But like the 80s and 90s were not like Bruce Springsteen folk albums, like Nebraska was. And so when you’re thinking about your career, like, I think that that’s that like thinking about that in like as I was watching that movie, I was like, oh my god, like these people don’t understand the thing that they’re doing. Like, this is clearly about this person who has to make Nebraska now, even though it makes no logical sense to make Nebraska, because he knew that the minute that that born in the USA comes out, his life was going to revolutionarily change. And this was the thing he could he had to do now before the thing that was gonna be the thing that defined his life.

Joel 46:34

That’s awesome. I love that. That’s so quick. Now I’m gonna I’m gonna go watch that. It’s amazing.

Springsteen’s Nebraska Career Lesson

Russell 46:40

Yeah. So yeah.

Joel 46:42

Well, now I was just gonna say, I Russell, I think, I think we should, let’s, I think we should bring our conversation to a pause now, and maybe we could I maybe in a few months we could pop back on and do another episode. Because I’ve sure I’ve really enjoyed this. This is not what I expected in our conversation. Um, and I wanted to say how I appreciate how you’re really bringing the deeper dimensions of the writing process to the fore in a way that I think a lot of people don’t, um, myself included. And so it’s been it’s and I I hope people have found it as rewarding as I have and have been able to kind of follow us down this rabbit hole we’ve gone down. Um I want to give you a chance to plug anything you want to plug. You know, uh, how do people get more Russell Nulti in their lives?

Russell 47:25

Sure, man. So like my site is hapitalist.com. It’s like capitalist with an H. We have a tarot deck on there you can download for free. Um, we have uh hundreds of articles that you can find. We have an app. So uh we have an app you can, it’s got literally like dozens upon dozens upon dozens of tools and modules and all things to help you build and get business clarity for chaos, chaos-minded creators. Nice.

Joel 47:55

So really it’s like And just to interrupt you real quick, I’m sorry to do that, but I subscribe to the Hapitalist newsletter. That’s how I engage with Hapitalists is via the newsletter, and I read not everyone because there’s a lot of them, but I find them to be super engaging and interesting and helpful.

Russell 48:09

So Oh, thank you so much. That means so much to me. Yeah. And uh the platform is new, the the app is new, but the idea is that like I have done a lot in my career. I’ve done all of this stuff, and like no one uses any of it because they’re all in books and like they’re all in things, they’re static. So we gamified it. We it’s callable from Claude. If you use Claude, like uh anyone who’s like a paid member can can uh can use basically anything in the app. And um yeah, I’m we’re try what I’m trying to do is connect the dots between strategy and tactics. And what I think authors have a lot of, an overwhelming amount of, is tactics. And frankly, I’m as responsible for that as anyone, being as a person who’s written all of these books on tactics and very few on strategy. The thing that’s gonna separate you as an author and you as a successful person is the strategy part that makes it all come together. It’s kind of like a stock of brock of Brussels sprouts.

Joel 49:21

You ever seen a stock of Brussels sprouts, Joel? I love Brussels sprouts. I love growing Brussels sprouts, and I I’m with you.

Russell 49:29

They’re so

Hapitalist Tools Strategy And Joy

Russell 49:30

weird. Like there’s like a basically Jack and the Beanstalk stalk, and they all like these like weird Brussels sprouts come around. They just pop right out the stem. They just weird, it’s so weird. It’s like so weird. And if you look at the Brussels sprouts without the stock, you would be like, How does that all make sense? And those are your tactics. But the stock, even when you look at it with the stock, you’re like, that doesn’t make much sense, but like, sure. At least that at least that’s a ethos. Like, and like the strategy. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, it so go to Hapitalist. We have a podcast, we have apps, I have all these weird books. I have one on how to be on being happy and a successful author at the same time. I highly recommend it kind of goes through a lot of this stuff. How many of you know how you can actually set your all of your um strategy in place? And really, that joy should be the center of your strategy, not the ancillary benefit of it, because it will never do that. Like joy will never follow success, because if success, if you don’t have joy as the center point, you’re going to lead this going to lead you and success will lead you in places you don’t want to go. And then you’ll get further and further from it. The good news is that the best predictor of success is joy because when you like something, when you enjoy something, you both like it, like the activity, and you get a positive feedback loop from it. So the the old like hard work is the only work. Only works if you’re like putting up a barn. Doesn’t work with knowledge work. What actually works is like what is the most resonant thing, which is why our main, our main group program is called soul resonance selling. It’s about moving from pain point selling to soul resonance selling so that you can I love that. So that you can start resonating with more people so that you can resonate outside. And the way that you see resonance is like where you find joy is also where people find joy in you. And that joy is that is like the thing that you’re trying that connects us together, not misery. I mean, misery can connect us together, but it’s the joy that actually, the joy that we can get out of that misery together that actually like like creates connection.

Joel 51:57

I love it. Well, thanks, Russell. And please, everybody, please go check check out Hapitalists. It’s super cool. I hope everybody has gotten a sense of that from our conversation here. But Russell’s the kind of guy you should be reading and listening to. So thank you very much.

Russell 52:10

Thanks for having me.