Episode 33: Building An Author Career That Lasts with Bryan Cohen

Angela Haas (00:17)
Welcome to episode 33. I'm Angela Haas and I'm here with my co-host Cassie Newell. And this month we're talking all about how to grow your author business. Today we have a magical guest. We're talking to the inspiring Bryan Cohen. Bryan runs BestPage Forward, a company that helps authors learn, profit, sustain, and scale their author careers. He's helped over 30,000 authors through
his ad challenges and his Sell More Books show podcast has run every week for over a decade. Bryan's author ad agency manages ads for authors selling millions of dollars in book sales per year. Welcome Bryan. Thank you so much for being here. This is so exciting. Yes. And we want to talk obviously about Best Page Forward
Bryan Cohen (01:04)
Yeah, thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to be here on the show.
Cassie Newell (01:06)
Yeah.
Awesome.
Angela Haas (01:15)
Author Ad School, Groundbreakers, I don't actually know how you sleep and do all that you're doing or eat or basic human needs, but we both are taking part in that program, Groundbreakers and Author Ad School. And one thing that surprised me was I thought it was just all about ads, but when you do your 30 minute coachings, you talk a lot about mindset.
Cassie Newell (01:21)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (01:42)
I feel like maybe as authors, that's one of the most important things, whether we're writing or marketing, if our mindset isn't right first, can we truly be that successful? What do think?
Bryan Cohen (01:55)
Yeah, and I've
seen authors who were on the verge, like it seemed like this was gonna be the month they were gonna get their first $2,500 a month, their first $5,000 a month. And then it all crapped out and then three months later they're back down to under 500 a month. And I was just like, why does that happen? Why? And it really comes down to mindset. comes down to...
Angela Haas (02:18)
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Bryan Cohen (02:23)
Like it's like this cascading domino effect of, Hey, this thing that I thought was going to work went wrong. So I better pull back or, things never work out when I try them. I'm just not going to try them anymore. Or like, I think this is perfectly positioned, but this one beta reader gave me feedback
and now I'm going to tweak a bunch of stuff. And then it's not actually going to be as good as it would have been. And so it's like,
Cassie Newell (02:50)
Mm.
Bryan Cohen (02:52)
There's all these different aspects of an author's mindset that can absolutely impact whether or not they succeed when they have the opportunity to succeed.
Angela Haas (03:04)
Yeah, I went through that and then it's the whole reason I wanted to start this podcast because
I call it the awkward sophomore year where you're like, okay, I published a book. Now what? This is so overwhelming. I don't know what to do first. And you try some Facebook ads after I signed up for a Facebook ad class and nothing worked. it is, how do you not get discouraged? Cause I know it's a long game, but when you see so much money going out, not much coming in in the beginning, even now publishing, about to publish my fourth book.
Cassie Newell (03:36)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (03:39)
my sales in the summer so down and you're like, God, I'm trying to do everything and yet it's not making a difference. So for people in that mindset, how do you keep going? How do you not give up?
Bryan Cohen (03:54)
Yeah.
Well, I think in your case specifically, I mean, it's like, we don't know if it's not making a difference. We might, if you had had a month where you weren't running ads, it's possible that your sales would have been worse than the previous month or worse than two months prior. And running the ads has actually gotten you back to where you are normally.
Angela Haas (04:03)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (04:20)
And so you look at that and you're like, these aren't doing anything. When in reality, we don't, we don't know. And I think that a lot of authors, not, not just you, like millions of people are like, let's kind of assume the worst in a given situation. It's easy to do. It's easy to do. I do it too. And I have to work on that every single day of my life.
Angela Haas (04:20)
Right.
Okay.
Right.
Bryan Cohen (04:49)
to not assume the worst, not assume that, this is the last time this will work or that thing I used to do doesn't work anymore or whatever, we don't know. And so when we are putting in that weekly work of making ads or putting in that daily work of writing, it's so easy to think that what we're doing, the little bits that we're putting in aren't making progress.
But sometimes progress is so incremental. We simply can't see it. And we have to trust on faith that the effort we're putting in, in the right direction, in the right areas, these things are actually making an impact, which is so hard. You almost need to be like a little crazy one way or the other. You either need to be crazy and assume everything's bad or crazy and assume everything's good.
Angela Haas (05:35)
Okay.
Bryan Cohen (05:45)
But crazy and assuming everything's good is more profitable in the long run, like by far.
Cassie Newell (05:53)
So what do you think separates the authors who stick around and grow that long term mindset versus those that burn out
and lose it? Like, what is the difference between those two types of authors that you see?
Bryan Cohen (06:07)
Well,
think some people, with some people it's about community. It's about surrounding themselves with good community, which is why we have ad school, which is why we had the challenges and still have the challenges in a different form. It's why we have ground breakers in the other groups that we have so that positive energy is being shared with other people so that you're not stuck in the vacuum. So I do think community is a factor and community can work in the negative way too, right?
Angela Haas (06:36)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Cohen (06:36)
If you surround yourself with negative
people, people who say it's never going to work out, people who, even if you are successful, will crap all over you, then the opposite's going to happen. I do think that a lot of it has to do with working with your personality and who you are. Like you guys know, I'm a big fan of Claire Taylor and the Enneagram and she has the different personality types, but it's not like...
Angela Haas (07:01)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Cohen (07:06)
⁓ Enneagram sevens are always positive. So they always continue on, but Enneagram fours are having identity crises. So they never make it. It's like, no, it's like, if you can be at the healthy level within that Enneagram type, you can, you can usually continue onward in your career. So a lot of it comes down to, are you working on yourself on a daily basis?
or are you just like letting that fly in the wind and hope that you end up okay? Usually the people who are at least
Angela Haas (07:40)
Just.
Cassie Newell (07:42)
Ugh.
Bryan Cohen (07:46)
working on themselves a little bit are able to continue on even if they don't necessarily have the community piece. If you have a little bit of both, so much the better.
Cassie Newell (07:57)
Yeah,
I love that kind of knowing yourself and identity because Angela and I have switched genres and for me, a couple pen names, all the things to find out like what really suits and gets me excited to write. And I think that the hard thing in this industry specifically being an author is it takes time to write books.
Angela Haas (08:06)
Okay.
Cassie Newell (08:23)
it takes time to know which experience really suits you. And that's what can be the most frustrating part, right? ⁓ So I don't know, I've learned over my iterations that it's just given me more skill sets and building blocks to get where I am today, which I feel great about. So I just find though,
Angela Haas (08:30)
Okay.
Cassie Newell (08:46)
in talking to a brand new author, it's kind of tough because the bright eye,
and bushy tailed and I remember those days too. But at the same time, you're like, you're, going to go through some hills and valleys and be, be okay with that and just prepare for that. But yeah, I love that identity of self. That's really important.
Bryan Cohen (09:11)
and what you brought up, expectations are hard.
Angela Haas (09:11)
Yeah.
Cassie Newell (09:14)
Yeah, they are.
Bryan Cohen (09:15)
If
you set sky high expectations, they can be difficult to live up to, think. If you talk to the right people and you expect that, hey, you might have to write more than three books, or you might have to write more than two series to get there, then you have a much better expectation than if you, I don't know, see some ad that says, ⁓ you're go make a million dollars.
Angela Haas (09:15)
So, thank you.
Cassie Newell (09:37)
I know, yeah. Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (09:38)
on your first book,
then your expectations may be out line with reality.
Cassie Newell (09:45)
So true.
Angela Haas (09:45)
Yeah,
I think that circling back to the community and the group thing, I kind of, after a while I had to leave the 20 books to 50 K group, not in an, like not that there isn't positivity. I had such low self-esteem coming into this industry because I was a business manager, masters in organizational leadership and communication.
we run eight retail businesses, brick and mortar stores. So I came from that world, which helped me on the business side, but I felt so strongly that I wasn't supposed to be here and that I wasn't good enough that, you when I'd have a sale, was like the greatest thing on Earth And then when it didn't, it was like, I'm a failure. I had to overcome like feeling like I wasn't even supposed to be here. So that when I was in the
20 books group and people are like, I had 20 million page reads. I'd had such compare-itis that so happy for those people. It's not that. I just couldn't. That's not where I am. And I kept thinking, God, if I'm not there, how can I get there? That feels overwhelming. I kind of had to step back from that Facebook group because I kept comparing my journey to theirs. And that's, I think, something that
Cassie Newell (10:42)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (11:03)
sophomore year authors do is they're like, well, why am I not like this person and I should be doing this and it's really you. It's really your path. And I had to learn that painfully. Yeah, right.
Bryan Cohen (11:12)
Right.
Cassie Newell (11:12)
Yeah.
You're playing golf of one.
Bryan Cohen (11:17)
Yeah. And
it's comparing somebody's middle to your beginning. And that's hard. Because I think a lot of authors feel like after book one, it's their middle. And it's like, no, it's still the beginning. And these 20 million page reads people more often than not are in the middle of their journey. And it's so easy to look at
Angela Haas (11:26)
Right. Yeah.
No.
Bryan Cohen (11:44)
where they're at and assume that you must have screwed up, but it's never the case. It's that you were playing completely different games.
Cassie Newell (11:53)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (11:53)
Right.
Yeah. Well, I'm writing completely different things. mean, a lot of it, those were romantasy and I can't do that. So that's okay. I'm reading romantasy and I'm like, how? I can't, I can't do this. Well, and I, I'm too, my number one strength, Clifton strength is strategic.
Bryan Cohen (12:01)
Mm-hmm.
And that's okay. I can't do Romanticie either, so it's totally okay.
Cassie Newell (12:07)
love it. ⁓
Angela Haas (12:23)
They're all thinking ones. like very vampire romance. I'm like, I can't, there's too many teeth. I don't know the logistics of sharing a household. Like I'm too logical. ⁓ It's just like, I can't go there. So I'm gonna stay in my lane and I'm finding my lane. ⁓ But I think too, I was in some communities where as soon as anything changed in the world that felt stressful, they were like, we should just quit writing.
Bryan Cohen (12:23)
Me too.
Cassie Newell (12:31)
sorry.
Bryan Cohen (12:32)
Too many teeth, way too many teeth.
Angela Haas (12:52)
We shouldn't write anymore. If the world's ending, just forget it. Stop. How can you keep writing when the A, B, and C is happening outside your door? I'm like, well, okay, but I don't know. I think you keep going. You don't quit.
Bryan Cohen (13:05)
Yeah, I mean, you keep going in, in
there are people who say 2025 is the worst for being an author it's ever been. Page reads are down things are whatever. And then there are people having their best year ever their best year. I'm trying to get out of the habit of saying ever best year yet best months yet. And
Angela Haas (13:16)
Great.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Bryan Cohen (13:32)
that both things can't be true, that it's the worst year for authors and that some authors are having their best year yet. It can't be true that it's the worst across the board and that everybody's losing if some people are winning. And I do think some of that is about the mindset. Some of that is about the community. And some of that is just, readers are always out there. And it's hard but simple.
Angela Haas (13:49)
Okay.
Cassie Newell (13:57)
Right.
Bryan Cohen (14:03)
The simple truth is that if you have a book that if you run
Cassie Newell (14:03)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (14:09)
ads to or you run social media to or you do whatever and you can put out a dollar or you can put out a certain amount of time and get more than that amount of money or more than that amount of time back, then if you keep doing that, you'll profit.
you can do it over and over again with multiple books and multiple things and multiple genres or multiple series. If you have a thing that you spend a dollar on it, it makes $2. Some people have made six figure careers on that seven figure careers on that concept. And it's really simple, but it's really hard. And that's where we lose people that we lose people in the hard.
Cassie Newell (14:49)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (14:54)
but a lot of people
Angela Haas (14:54)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (14:55)
try to complicate it and they try to have seven different marketing methods all at once, but it's
simple. The one thing will probably work the best. Another thing will probably work the second best. And after that, it's diminishing returns. So do that one or two things. Keep writing, keep releasing, take care of yourself throughout.
Cassie Newell (15:14)
Yeah.
That's like the Bryan Cohen golden rule, isn't it? That should be the next book, The Golden Rule. ⁓ But it's interesting that you said that because joining
Angela Haas (15:19)
Yup. Right.
Bryan Cohen (15:23)
Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah, I like it.
Cassie Newell (15:32)
Groundbreakers and I was in ad school before, but I like the coaching aspect that really works for me. And I have a coach who's very no-nonsense and it's perfect for me. And
Angela Haas (15:43)
Scarlett, we love her.
Bryan Cohen (15:45)
yes, we all love Scarlett. We
always love Scarlett.
Cassie Newell (15:47)
And I was like,
okay, so I'm running these ads and she's like, no, we need to do this first so we can see how, you know, it's all you want to throw. It's like my Italian side, like Angela's, I want to throw the pasta and see what sticks like as fast as possible. And it's really hard to wait and watch and see and, and, and I don't
Angela Haas (16:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Cassie Newell (16:14)
always agree with everything either. I'm like, but when I know what I know in my lane, I feel really strong about it. But since I don't know ads very well, I'm like, okay, let's talk. But I do know that, as Angela said earlier, it's not all about ads, right? It's about your email, your reader connection, your branding.
it's, it's so much more it's it's a bigger umbrella than this one piece, right. So I was going to ask you, and one of my questions I kind of wrote down because you get overwhelmed by this, you know, most people do, kind of coming in and mainly mid stage authors, I would say get even more kind of held back as to well, where do I focus? So
Angela Haas (16:43)
you
Bryan Cohen (16:54)
Yes,
Cassie Newell (17:05)
And
what can I get the most traction on the earliest? Is there one thing that you feel, you know, once authors have several books kind of out there where they should focus first?
Angela Haas (17:08)
.
Bryan Cohen (17:20)
writing routine.
Cassie Newell (17:22)
Writing routine. Okay.
Bryan Cohen (17:24)
I think that the marketing is gonna come. I think that yes, ads and email are
important. Social media might play a role at some point.
Angela Haas (17:32)
You ⁓
Cassie Newell (17:35)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (17:36)
But the problem is someone will write their second book, their fourth book, and then there'll be a vacation and then there'll be a thing. And then it takes them seven to 12 months to get out the next book. Cause they didn't have a locked in writing routine. And I know like, you know, Becca Simon will listen to this maybe and she'll be like, no, not everyone needs a writing routine. I'm like, I get it. I get it. But like, and
Cassie Newell (17:47)
Yeah, it's lengthy.
Bryan Cohen (18:00)
I don't even think that it has to be certain number of days per week, but certain number of days in a month.
Cassie Newell (18:04)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (18:06)
where you're writing, where you're, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And you're, a lot of people are, but like having a plan by which, okay, I write, I put out this book and then here's how I, and when I start the next book. I think writing routine is really important. And I've noticed even in people who are doing quite well, like they, they sometimes need a little bit of movement in the,
Cassie Newell (18:07)
I'm seasonal. I know it.
Angela Haas (18:21)
Okay.
Cassie Newell (18:24)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (18:36)
Well, I write
between this hour and this hour. I research between this hour and this hour. I think writing routine is pretty key. And I think having a writing routine and the ability to put more words out into the world is part of the marketing.
Cassie Newell (18:42)
Yeah.
That's awesome. I love that.
Angela Haas (18:52)
Yeah.
Yeah. I write at night, which sometimes is hard because it can't take part in some of the group things just because
Bryan Cohen (19:02)
sure.
Angela Haas (19:03)
When it's like 9 o'clock, the dogs are asleep, the husband's asleep. I can't procrastinate by like doing chores and making noise. So I really have to sit there, you know, because even in the morning, everyone's up and there's just chaos and then the emails start coming in. at night, like everything's quiet. So but I don't always write. I started to feel guilty about that. But I think it's even just showing up for yourself. And that was a we had a whole podcast on this like
Showing up for yourself, even when you don't want to. Sitting in this chair at my office hours and saying, going to do one thing. I don't want to do anything, but I'm going to do one thing tonight. Even just the smallest thing is still counts as like showing up for your career. You know, you're, you're making this work and I do it. mean, 362 days of the year I've been in the chair at 9pm doing my work and
But it took a while to find that because I was like, I don't know how to organize even my office But I think I had to take it seriously and Realize okay. I can't just like right whenever You know, I had to like make it and say this is what I want to do now. This is my career even though I'm not considered a full-time writer, but
Cassie Newell (20:06)
It takes.
Bryan Cohen (20:14)
Yeah.
But that doesn't matter that like
career, full-time, part-time, whatever what matters is, okay, I'm putting in the words every week. I'm putting in the marketing every week. You're an author and that's what you do. And, and so I think it's awesome. It doesn't matter what you'd classify yourself as or what other people would classify you as. just matters that.
Cassie Newell (20:36)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (20:37)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (20:49)
Okay, this is the work I do every week. And if I keep it up, eventually good things will happen.
Angela Haas (20:55)
Yeah. And tell us a little bit about how your journey because you, I mean, was your start exactly being an author or what came first? Which was it the chicken or the egg? Were you doing more? Tell us a little bit about your exact journey leading up to all these other services and giving back so much to other authors.
Cassie Newell (20:55)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (21:18)
Yeah, well, thank you. was always in with teaching. I always liked teaching. And I liked comedy and I liked writing. And so it all kind of mixed together. I was doing a blog where I was doing these writing prompts for writers and I was doing some teaching on that blog. And then I decided, oh, let's put that into a book.
And then I was selling the book and it did really well. It sold like 20,000 plus copies. And it was, these were the early days of self-publishing. It wasn't even called KDP yet. It was like Amazon publishing
Angela Haas (21:55)
The gold brush. Right.
Bryan Cohen (22:00)
services. And so I...
started selling that book and I loved just like the idea of the indie author community and I really wanted to be a part of it, but I could see that there were people struggling. So I was like looking for opportunities for people to connect. I connected with Jim Cukral, who was the original cohost of the Sell More Books Show and we started a podcast together, Sell More Book Show back in 2014. ⁓
crazy that that's been going so long, but we, I loved just gathering more and more information. I'm a big fan of like, learn and then teach, learn and then teach. And so I learned so much from the other people around me. I was out there teaching it. We started with the book description service, cause I used to be a copywriter and
Angela Haas (22:35)
Wow.
Okay.
Cassie Newell (22:46)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (22:58)
I wrote thousands of articles for like Ghost Rope for CEOs,
Angela Haas (23:02)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (23:02)
all this random stuff in my 20s and early 30s. And it's like, you know, I can spin this and I got the idea from a mastermind group I was in. So yay, community. And put that out there and it, you know, sold a lot of blurbs, but people were struggling with.
Like, well, how do I use these blurbs and how do I know if they're doing better? And that's when I realized people need to know
Cassie Newell (23:28)
Mmm.
Bryan Cohen (23:31)
how many people have visited your page in order to figure out if something has gotten better, like a cover or a book description or, or the title. And that's where ads really came in. So I learned ads so that I could teach the ads learn and then teach. And that has really just like.
Cassie Newell (23:41)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Cohen (23:50)
Opened so many different doors, so many people who learned from those early days at author ad school. They've, they've gone on to become full timers. They've gone on to make a lot of money. We went on to do more coaching of people who wanted to keep going. We went on to run ads for people who wanted to keep going. And it's crazy to think that right now all these things are happening all at once.
People might read an email that I send out for free. People might join one of our challenges for, know, ⁓ cost of two lattes. They might join our course and take that for three to twelve months. They might join Ground Breakers and be in there for six months or longer and get hands on coaching. They might.
Cassie Newell (24:25)
Yep.
Right.
Bryan Cohen (24:42)
graduate to working with me and in my group, Pathfinders, they might be making 10 grand a month and want us to run their ads for them. All those things are actually happening all at once right now, which is insane. We have so many people on the team. We have so many people in various stages. Like we have probably right now there's like five zoom rooms going on with people in
Angela Haas (24:57)
my God.
Bryan Cohen (25:10)
agency meetings or ad school coaching or Groundbreakers one-on-ones. Like it's all
Cassie Newell (25:17)
I love it.
Bryan Cohen (25:19)
just happening. But it, it, it really started with the vision of like everyone in this community deserves support, whether they're just starting out or whether they're at the highest level. And I've been thinking a lot about this lately. It's like, if you want to.
be in a certain industry. And I know you guys have various business experiences outside of publishing, but if you want to be in a certain business, what is something that the other people don't do well? And for me, was always, man, other people are really crappy at service.
Angela Haas (25:54)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Cohen (25:56)
And I was like, okay, well, what if we weren't crappy? What if someone always answered the emails? What if there was always someone there to answer a question? And that at points was hard because we were spending more on support than we were getting in on people joining courses. But it was like all met as part of this bigger picture and it, it all worked out and there've been.
Cassie Newell (26:03)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (26:24)
slip-ups along the way, but we've helped a lot of people and it's been pretty darn cool.
Cassie Newell (26:32)
That's awesome.
Angela Haas (26:33)
Are you going to write your memoir soon? from... I know it could be a volume set. Yeah. Well, just, just the fact that you were an improv. mean, I was a theater kid, but...
Bryan Cohen (26:35)
I know, there's probably, I hope there's a lot more to come. I have to do a part one, part two. No, I would love to. I know, I know.
Cassie Newell (26:39)
Yeah, it's too early.
Angela Haas (26:52)
I couldn't do improv. I couldn't. I had to like get into the character and like really think about it. Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (26:57)
It's because of the thinking thing, you know, you mentioned
earlier. It's tough to think in improv. You have to like kill that inner monologue.
Cassie Newell (27:01)
Yeah.
Just go for it.
Bryan Cohen (27:05)
I like used to have an inner monologue. Improv, improv made him go
away.
Cassie Newell (27:09)
But the the piece about the ad school, too, and Ground Breakers is that it makes ads a lot less scary.
Angela Haas (27:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cassie Newell (27:17)
Because they're they're intimidating for a lot of
people because you're like, wait, I'm spending money and I'm not really already making money. And, you know, that whole balance thing, it's it's a little hard to grasp. And hell, I jumped both feet in and I was like, I'm going to do audio books and I don't care right now because I'm going long game and I'm just doing it. But what I wanted to ask you is, what's one mistake you often see in book blurbs?
Angela Haas (27:31)
You
Bryan Cohen (27:34)
Mm-hmm.
huh.
Cassie Newell (27:44)
or add strategy that stops a great book from really finding its reader? Is there something that you've seen in terms of trend over the years?
Bryan Cohen (27:56)
think it's about rushing. People rush the book blurb, they forget they even need one until the last second, and then they sprint through it and it doesn't get the care that their book gets. So they have run on sentences and it kind of just makes the book sound boring. And so, but also with the ads, they rush, they're like, well, this hasn't worked in three days, so I'm going to turn it off. And so I think a lot of it is about rushing.
Cassie Newell (27:59)
rushing.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Angela Haas (28:13)
Mm-hmm.
Cassie Newell (28:14)
Yeah.
That would be me.
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (28:24)
Patience
is hard to come by even for patient people. Patience is not easy. ⁓
Cassie Newell (28:29)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (28:29)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Cohen (28:36)
immediate gratification world and a lot of things about books, even though, look, we aren't querying as much anymore. We aren't worried about some agent or some editor accepting us. And we think, great, well, that means we can get it done right away. Well, not always. We still have to be patient. And I get impatient a lot of the time too. And so it's important to come back to the patience
Cassie Newell (28:37)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Angela Haas (28:53)
Right.
Cassie Newell (28:53)
Yeah.
I love that because I am not a very patient person, but what was really interesting to me is I have, I'm a CliftonStrengths girlie, I have very high strategic and achiever. And one of the things when I launched this year, a new pen name, I launched a series that was completed last summer. That killed me, but it was awesome. And I was like, never again, I'm always going to be writing.
Bryan Cohen (29:25)
⁓ yeah, that would hurt me.
Cassie Newell (29:32)
in terms of never again would I not do it this way. I will always do it this way. I will always be writing for something well in the future as much as I can, because it does it gives it time to sit and gives you some patience on how these blurbs should go. And I have to tell you, it was so fun because I went to your, your blurb copy. And I was like, I feel pretty good about my blurbs. But
Bryan Cohen (29:54)
Yeah, yeah.
Cassie Newell (29:59)
I do know there could be tighter areas, but sometimes as a writer, you can't see the forest for the trees. And I do think it's so helpful to have a coach or these opportunities and community for people to see it, you know, and point those things out. ⁓ So I love that about patience because it took me a long time to get there. And I was like, you know, it's not really that I'm not patient to hit publish as fast as I can.
Angela Haas (30:05)
No.
Bryan Cohen (30:29)
Yeah.
Cassie Newell (30:29)
It's
building the strategy for the marketing, building it for when I'm ready to launch and have the bandwidth for that because by the time I'm finished with editing this book, I have the, you know, the wherewithal to do this other thing. So I really love that. That's such a, such a great tool to think about.
Angela Haas (30:32)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Cohen (30:41)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
And I get it. Like the coaching aspect that you bring up, this is why you need a coach. And it's like, everyone in the author world needs a coach, but they don't want it because they think they should be able to do it on their own. And it's like, why? Why should you be able to do it on your own? Because you've done, you know, other things on your own that you probably shouldn't have done on your own. It's like every, every high level.
Cassie Newell (30:58)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Angela Haas (31:07)
Right.
Cassie Newell (31:16)
Right.
Bryan Cohen (31:19)
achiever in the world, like Olympic athletes and business people. We think of them as like, being self-made. It's like, no, usually they had a lot of people. Yeah, exactly.
Angela Haas (31:20)
you
Cassie Newell (31:31)
Yeah, they have dieticians, trainers, like the whole gamut is behind them. Yeah, I
do think that we put ourselves in our own silos when we think indie and it really doesn't have to be. I love saying writing is a team sport, even though you're the only one writing the book. ⁓ So yeah, I love that.
Bryan Cohen (31:47)
Yes.
Angela Haas (31:53)
Yeah. For authors who might be thinking about ad school, so there's ad school maybe as a start, then Ground breakers, then Path finders.
I wondered if you could speak to that, like, what if I'm listening and I'm like, well, I haven't even published a book yet. I have one and I'm editing it, but this probably isn't for me yet. I mean, is there a better time to start this process or did you just like, if you have the opportunity, just start, just dive in.
Bryan Cohen (32:21)
I'm a big fan of jumping in. I'm even, used to say like, maybe don't run ads until you have a few books out. Dude, run ads on your first book. Cause if you're planning on writing a 14 book series and book one is getting a sale one out of every hundred clicks or some other terrible conversion rate, 14 books isn't going to do it. And, and I would rather people get that, maybe a little bit of that rude awakening and see.
Angela Haas (32:31)
Right.
Right.
Bryan Cohen (32:52)
Cause I've seen, we've had some students in ad school and I feel bad. Like we tell them, look, that one book you wrote, you can put a hundred different covers on it. Give it, you know, put it in 10 different categories, do whatever. Write another book because that one you've, you've gotten enough data. It doesn't sell. And you might need more cracks at it. Look, some of our biggest success stories.
in in ad school and in coaching they had their best success on their second series or their fifth series
their whatever and they never gave up they but but they were willing they never gave up trying new things they were willing to stop beating a dead horse
Cassie Newell (33:26)
Yeah.
I know that Angela and I, we're in similar communities and we've had people who will tell us, ⁓ but I have to finish this series. And we're like, it's not selling, you hate it. Why are you continuing it? Like pivot, regroup. I mean, do you think that the hundred people that read your book are like,
Angela Haas (33:54)
All right.
Cassie Newell (34:01)
Solivating for the next one? I don't know. It's tough.
Bryan Cohen (34:04)
Yeah, and when people get emails, they're like, well,
my fans want me to do this. And it's like, well, how many? Like two? That's not gonna be enough to make your career a success.
Angela Haas (34:08)
Right. Right. Yeah.
Cassie Newell (34:13)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's
really tough to hear though, but I also think, but what a great building block because now you've got a skill set, right? Of, okay, I know how to finish books. I know how to, you know, move into a series. I know how to do this. I know how to, you know, it's all transferable skills, but as authors, I don't think we see that. You know, it's really difficult. Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (34:37)
Right, yeah, no, we don't. Yeah.
Angela Haas (34:37)
It's hard to see that. It's hard to see all
that. ⁓ I'm not gonna give up on my series yet, only because I had...
my whole career too could just be serve as a warning for others because I made so many mistakes. put my trust in so many, I put my trust in the wrong people sometimes and because I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I waited to like from my first book in the series, my second one came out way too late I'm going to put it on hold until I can, I'm going to just try three and four and finish it up so that there's more read through.
Cassie Newell (34:53)
Angela, that's not true.
Hmm.
Angela Haas (35:14)
it's my joy project, gives me joy. So I still want to see that through because for me, leaving that unfinished, it's my passion project. It's superheroes. It's everything I love. Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (35:24)
You, Angela, you are allowed to have joy. You are also open
to all possibilities. You could write another book after you write book three and then come back to book four. Like you could create something different and not say never to finishing up that series, but you're allowed, and this is a Becca Simism, you're allowed to say not yet.
Cassie Newell (35:33)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (35:33)
Yeah.
Cassie Newell (35:40)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (35:40)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Cassie Newell (35:49)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Angela Haas (35:52)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Cohen (35:53)
And that can sometimes satisfy
Angela Haas (35:53)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (35:57)
the achievers and the strategics is just like, not yet. And you're allowed. me too, me too. Not yet has been helpful for me.
Cassie Newell (36:00)
Yeah.
Angela Haas (36:00)
I know. Well, I have competition in there too. Yeah. It's competition against myself.
Yeah. And that's when I said, you know, I'm actually the romance that I put out is outselling the first two superheroes. So what I'm going to focus on is getting, yep. I'm going to get out at least six to eight romances. I've got them all outlined and I'm going to publish those and finish like a complete romance.
Cassie Newell (36:20)
Hmm.
Angela Haas (36:28)
kind of not a series where they're standalones in the same sort of siblings that get their own story. And then once those are rolling, I'm going to return to my passion project and get that because I even think I'm all marketing to the same group of women. ⁓ So in a certain age set, so I figured even if they like the romance, I read all kinds of genres. If I love someone's romance, I would pick up their superhero book.
Bryan Cohen (36:32)
for sure, for sure.
Angela Haas (36:57)
So I will relaunch those. if they're still after I put out two more books, not selling, then it's time to be like, let it go. ⁓ but while as we're wrapping up, think the last question that I had for you is, cause there's so many snake oil salesman out there and I I'm so frustrated that I found ad school too late because I had wasted so much money signing up for classes that promised me
Cassie Newell (37:17)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Angela Haas (37:26)
I signed up for a mastermind that was thousands of dollars and the teacher quit halfway through and left us. like, what's the one thing to protect ourselves from that? if you could go back in time and tell your
past author self something that you learned painfully? What would that be? I guess that's a two part question.
Bryan Cohen (37:50)
Yeah, no, I'm happy to answer
both parts. here's the tough thing for me. I'm, I'm a guy who's good at marketing. Some people are always going to think I'm a snake oil salesman because I'm a guy who's good at marketing. And even though I say things like, Hey, this might not work. And, you know, results, not typical and.
Angela Haas (38:02)
Mm-hmm.
Cassie Newell (38:03)
Hmm.
Angela Haas (38:14)
Right.
Bryan Cohen (38:15)
like it's gonna be hard work to do this, some people still will say, scam on the Facebook ads or whatever. And it's just like, you learn to become, know, more ⁓ resistant to those kinds of people, to those kinds of things. But that's the thing when, that's one of the hard parts is that everybody thinks,
Angela Haas (38:17)
gosh. Yeah. ⁓
Cassie Newell (38:22)
Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (38:44)
Some people think everything is a scam.
Angela Haas (38:47)
Yes, yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.
Bryan Cohen (38:47)
And so that can make it hard to stand out and to show people that we're real, it's happening. And in the age of people even being faking testimonials and faking humans and faking all sorts of things, it's scary ⁓ and it's crazy out there. But I do think that look for...
Cassie Newell (38:49)
Hmm.
Right.
Bryan Cohen (39:11)
people who continue to try to do the right thing over and over again. And it's hard to find, it's hard to get enough information to know that, but people who just try to do the right thing over and over again. That's where I would look next. And then for your second part, I think that the big thing is for ⁓ knowing,
Angela Haas (39:16)
you
Cassie Newell (39:16)
Mm.
Bryan Cohen (39:41)
The thing you would tell your past self is you didn't, you didn't, you didn't do anything wrong. You...
Angela Haas (39:43)
Yeah. ⁓
Bryan Cohen (39:54)
did the best you could with the information that you have, and you have new information now and you're getting more information
all the time. And if you keep working with new information and you keep making good decisions one after the other, after the other, eventually you will see forward progress.
Angela Haas (40:16)
Yeah, all right, done. Then there's nothing else. Okay. I mean, I'm going to be a star. ⁓ That's it. I'm going to just, I can embroider that on a throw pillow and that's it.
Cassie Newell (40:16)
Yeah, I love that.
I know, what the perfect ending.
Bryan Cohen (40:23)
Exactly,
exactly.
That's all you need. Yeah, that is all you need for sure.
Cassie Newell (40:33)
Bryan Cohen's Golden Rule.
I swear, I wanna mention. That's a good title.
Angela Haas (40:35)
Yeah.
Hehehehehe
Bryan Cohen (40:38)
Okay, okay, I'll let you know, I'll let you know,
Angela Haas (40:39)
⁓
Bryan Cohen (40:42)
10%. ⁓
Angela Haas (40:45)
All right, well, I think yes. This was such a great discussion and it just it's helpful and I know that there's gonna be a listener who's just so discouraged that's gonna be like, yes, I'm gonna keep going and that's our goal. Keep going, keep writing, keep doing. That's how we sign off. What we have to, yes, keep trying new things. What we have to do is table topics, okay?
Bryan Cohen (40:46)
Awesome, awesome.
Cassie Newell (41:03)
keep trying new things. Yeah.
Angela Haas (41:10)
This is an interesting one. I have an immediate answer as I always do. stereotypes of your minority group do you actually fit? Is there a stereotype? What stereotype about your minority group actually is accurate about you? a stereotype about women is that we're bad drivers.
Cassie Newell (41:21)
What stair, wait, what stereotypes?
Bryan Cohen (41:29)
this could get dicey.
Cassie Newell (41:30)
heard about me.
Angela Haas (41:35)
Alright, I'll go first and let you two think. I'm Italian and so I absolutely talk with my hands. Everyone thinks when we're just like talking or yelling and we're not yelling, that's actually just normally how we converse. Sometimes I'm just shouting and my husband's like, why are you yelling at me? And I was like, ⁓ I'm just actually, nope. So I mean, those kinds of things like a thousand percent.
Cassie Newell (41:38)
I'm like, wait, what?
Angela Haas (42:05)
I have to like watch my hands because sometimes I'm like talking and they're like, what are you doing? Are you unscrewing the light bulb? What is your, your gestures don't even match what you're saying, Angela. And I'm like, I didn't even know. So that's kind of a minority. And my husband might say I'm a bad driver, but I refuse to accept that. I, not until I can see that that's, that's what we're talking about. Do you fit into a stereotype?
Cassie Newell (42:24)
I love it.
Bryan Cohen (42:31)
Cassie, do you want to go next
or?
Angela Haas (42:33)
Hehehehehe
Cassie Newell (42:34)
All right, so I'm
from the South and I just moved back into a log cabin as of this past weekend, which is crazy. And yeah, we have a lot of Southern isms that have double en tondra meanings. And it was so funny because this weekend I blurted out something.
Angela Haas (42:58)
You ⁓
Cassie Newell (43:01)
And my oldest daughter, who's helping us move and stuff, she was like, I think you just made up your own Southernism. And I'm like, that's what it is to be in the South. Sometimes a chicken just has to fly. And she was like, what? Yeah,
I would say, yeah, I fit right into that. And I'm a great driver.
Angela Haas (43:25)
I'm a good driver too.
Bryan Cohen (43:27)
I'm sure you guys are both great drivers. I would be comfortable getting into your cars. So, ⁓ see, I'll go with, I'm a short person. I'm like five foot five on a good day. Really, really five foot four, five foot four and a half. And you know, for the longest time, and nobody tells you anything when you're growing up. Nobody tells you anything. Like, I just thought,
Angela Haas (43:30)
Okay. ⁓
Cassie Newell (43:32)
You
Angela Haas (43:52)
You
Bryan Cohen (43:57)
in like middle school and high school when I was like trying to get dates and whatnot. I just thought like people didn't like me for my personality or something. Nobody's told me like, girls don't like short people. Like, why do I find this out when I'm like 30 and married? I'm like, ⁓ okay, well that makes more sense now. But like, you know, as a... ⁓
Angela Haas (44:12)
my God.
Cassie Newell (44:15)
You
You
Bryan Cohen (44:23)
short person, you just kind of like get used to your world of like, ⁓ like, well, I can get things from down here or I can, I can walk around and do all of this. And, and, and like, I'm kind of in between really, really tall people, but like the, the, think the fun thing about being short is just I don't feel short to myself. And so like, I, I just feel like, I'm, I'm good.
Angela Haas (44:32)
You
Great.
Cassie Newell (44:47)
Right.
Bryan Cohen (44:51)
If I have a tall person that's hugging me, like I'm reaching up, like I'm as tall as them. And it's just like, and I don't know, I don't know what stereotype I necessarily fit, but I definitely have a low. have. Okay.
Angela Haas (44:53)
You
Well, there's a short person syndrome. Short person
syndrome is that you can be kind of crabby because, yeah, well, I'll see. ⁓
Cassie Newell (45:11)
and bossy like a Napoleon.
Bryan Cohen (45:11)
⁓ so well, don't fit,
bossy maybe, but at least I do it in a nice way. I think I do it. I like being the boss. I like being in charge. So if there's that part of Napoleon syndrome comes to me, then maybe, but ⁓ I would say I do it in a non-aristocratic, non-conquering way.
Angela Haas (45:18)
We're not saying, we're not saying that that's it.
It's like you're a perfect Bryan. You're just a perfect Bryan. That's how we sell it. He's a perfect Bryan, doesn't matter. Okay, we're not, as a disclaimer, we're not condoning these stereotypes or trying to say we agree with them. They just are out there. Anyway, thank you, Bryan, for joining us today.
Bryan Cohen (45:44)
I'll take it. I'll take it. Thank you. Thank you guys.
Angela Haas (46:04)
Thank you listeners. Don't forget to give us a review and rating wherever you listen to the podcast. It really helps us with visibility next week. I'm going to lead a discussion about how to reach out to indie bookstores, how to get your paper back out there, some merchandising tips, just because we always focus on the online piece of the selling, but there's a whole other world out there selling in person and.
events. So tune in for that and until then keep writing, keep doing. We'll see ya!