Automation, AI, and Overcoming Burnout with Tina Lopez

Ever wondered if working less could actually lead to greater success? Join me, Carissa Andrews, as I celebrate my birthday and unveil the groundbreaking High Vibe Author membership program on this special episode of Author Revolution. We tackle the thorny issues of burnout and maintaining a high-energy mindset, especially during the challenging mid-manifestation phase. With all my courses, masterclasses, and a thriving community bundled into one comprehensive support system, this membership is designed to transform the indie author journey.

I also bring in automation specialist Tina Lopez to reveal the magic of automating business processes. Feel the emotional highs and lows as I share my personal experiences of transitioning from hands-on coaching to automated content creation. Tina and I delve into tools like Zapier and MailerLite that streamline workflows, freeing up your time and energy. Discover the power of strategic collaborations, freebie swaps, and bundles, which can exponentially grow your email list and sales without the constant grind of content creation.

Lastly, we explore the fascinating realm of AI and its game-changing potential for authors. From automated daily content generators to AI-written book blurbs, these innovations promise to save you time and energy, allowing you to focus on what you do best—writing. Hear firsthand testimonials from authors who've experienced a transformation through automation and get inspired to implement these strategies in your own journey. Don't miss out on this action-packed episode filled with expert insights and practical tips to help you thrive in today's dynamic world of authorship.

Tired of pretending another mindset trick will finally unlock your author career? Write Your Reality is your no-BS, manifestation-meets-energy-regulation guide for neurodivergent writers ready to ditch burnout and write their next level.

Kickstarter is live April 14–May 11 — or, depending when you’re listening, already on fire.
✨ Get in here: https://authorrevolution.org/kickstarter

Indie publishing wasn’t built for neurodivergent minds—so let’s change that. Inside Author Revolution on Substack, I share exclusive insights on writing, publishing, and manifestation for ND authors. Plus, explore my neurospicy romcoms & urban fantasy worlds. Want to go deeper? Get access to Manifest Differently: The Deep End, my private podcast. Follow now: 👉 authorrevolution.org/substack

Chapters

• 0:47 The Author Revolution Podcast Launch
• 8:29 Automating Business
• 19:35 Automating Lead Gen and Sales Strategy
• 27:12 Collaborative Bundles for Email Growth
• 35:32 Streamlining Business With Automation Tools
• 46:57 Overcoming Automation Challenges in Authorship
• 54:45 Exploring Automation in Authorship
• 57:29 Implementing Automation Courses for Authors
• 1:01:48 Navigating Author Burnout and Change
• 1:11:25 Looking Ahead in the Author Revolution

Transcript

Carissa Andrews: 0:47

Welcome to the Author Revolution podcast, where change is not just embraced, it's celebrated. I'm Carissa Andrews, international bestselling author, indie author coach and your navigator through the ever-evolving landscape of authorship. Are you ready to harness the power of your mind and the latest innovations in technology for your writing journey? If you're passionate about manifesting your dreams and pioneering new writing frontiers, then you're in the perfect place. Here we merge the mystical woo of writing with the exciting advancements of the modern world. We dive into the realms of mindset, manifestation and the transformative magic that occurs when you believe in the impossible. We also venture into the world of futuristic technologies and strategies, preparing you for the next chapter in your author career. Every week, we explore new ways to revolutionize your writing and publishing experience, from AI to breakthrough thinking. This podcast is your gateway to a world where creativity meets innovation. Whether you're penning your first novel or expanding your literary empire, whether you're a devotee of the pen or a digital storyteller, this podcast is where your author revolution gains momentum. So join me in this journey to continue growth and transformation. It's time to redefine what it means to be an author in today's dynamic world.

Carissa Andrews: 2:08

This is the Author Revolution Podcast, and your author revolution starts now. Hi guys, welcome to another episode of the Author Revolution Podcast. I'm really excited for this episode today, first of all, because I'm recording this introduction and everything on my birthday, which is really kind of exciting. Today is September 3rd, it is the day before this podcast episode is going to air and, of course, it's my birthday, so I'm excited and I want to share all the good stuff with you guys. The first good thing I really have to share is the fact that my new membership is open Now. You might have heard me talking about it in some of the other podcast episodes, but this is a big deal, guys, because all of my courses are going to be going behind their memberships. So, rather than having courses available for you guys, one-on-one, we're going to be transforming everything to be accessible to authors in a way that I have not done before, but in a way that feels much better fitting to the way that I am and the personality that I am.

Carissa Andrews: 3:15

I'm a number one relator, and so when I create content, I'm always thinking about the individual who is going through the content, the courses, the meditations, hypnosis, whatever and wishing that I knew what they were going through. And more than likely, I already do right. We're indie authors. We've gone through a lot of transitions over the years and the biggest thing that I have found is that we wear so many hats that we get to this point of burnout when we don't see the results we're hoping for. Right. We've been kind of given this lie that if you hustle more, if you work faster, if you do all the things really quick, you're going to get this huge payout, and sometimes that's the case. But sometimes what we do is we're not energetically equipped for it and so we burn ourselves out. We burn bright and burn out.

Carissa Andrews: 4:04

And what I really wanted to do over the past few years and even this summer, I've done a lot of introspection of how I want my content to be delivered to authors. I've realized that it's here to be more of a support system. It's here to be more of a. I want to help lift you up and help you feel good while you're in that mid-manifestation phase right, when you're not quite to where you want to be yet, but you know you're getting there. And when you reach those days where sometimes you just don't feel like you're on the right track, but you know you want it so bad and we're here to support and help you, and that's what High Vibe Author is all about. We're throwing in all of the Abundant Author courses. The Millionaire Author Challenge, millionaire Author Manifestation is not part of this, because we only launch it once a year, but your Future Self is a part of it. Our Masterclass Membership is a part of it, and a brand new community is also a part of it, with different interactions with me. It's going to be an incredible place to come and focus your energies and efforts and be with a tribe of like-minded authors who are right where you are and who are working their way up the system. Okay, so if you're interested in checking it out, I really encourage you to come over and check things out. You can check it out for 10 days for just 23 bucks, and then it will obviously go up from there, but the website to check everything out is over at authorrevolutionorg. Forward slash high vibe. I can't wait for you to check it all out Now.

Carissa Andrews: 5:29

This episode couldn't be more timely because it's all about learning automations, and I talked to this wonderful woman her name is Tina Lopez about automations and how to help your time be worth more, or basically to remind yourself that your time is worth more than you've been giving it right, and so I want you to be thinking about all of that when you're listening to her speak about. You know how time is the new currency, and as you're developing things, as you're working on things, it's very important to question like, what stuff is really worth your time and what stuff isn't. Is it better for you to pay for something, for instance, than to continue to try to hobble things together? I think she makes some incredible points throughout this episode's interview, and I can't wait for you to dive in. She is an automation specialist and she is wonderful, so, without further ado, let's hop into it.

Carissa Andrews: 6:25

Well, hi there, tina. Welcome to the Author Revolution podcast. I'm really excited to have a chat with you today. So before we get started, though, can you give my audience a little bit of a background on who you are and what you do?

Tina Lopez: 6:37

Yeah, so hello everyone. My name is Tina. I'm a former online business coach, now turned into an online content creator, and I actually help creators automate their content traffic and income. Leveraging email marketing, no codecode and affiliate marketing that's my tagline. That's pretty simple.

Carissa Andrews: 6:52

That's great though, and it's great to be able to know that and be able to Distilling that in a pitch so much better than trying to be like well, here's this long story. I think I kind of do these things, but I'm not quite sure. Well, do you want to describe your online journey from being a coach to the content creator and this fully automated business model? What motivated you to pivot?

Tina Lopez: 7:13

Yeah, so this is the story now, so get comfortable, all right. All right. So in terms of like, how everything started. So I've always been an entrepreneur since I was a baby. I always tell people like I came out the womb and I was like I want to make money.

Tina Lopez: 7:28

But, jokes aside, no, so when I was younger, I always had these entrepreneurship endeavors of you know, doing henna, doing something artistic, creative. And I actually landed originally on business coaching because while I was in high school, like I actually had a full fledged henna business and so I knew all the things of like doing marketing, doing sales, doing everything Like we did events at Google, we did street fairs, we did weddings, like that was like me and my, that was my extracurricular activity in high school. People, henna artists that no, that doesn't work. And so I pivoted into serving life coaches. So business coaching for them, because I still had all this knowledge that like genuinely works and so I still want to pass that down and like I always love the coaching spaces. So I decided to target life coaches and I was. That was a really great run in terms of like I was helping them land the first couple clients. I truly am a big believer that business has the power to change your life, and so seeing someone make their first $10,000 in their business or finally getting monetized and paid for what they're doing and what they love to do, that is the greatest joy I've ever been able to see. And I kind of miss that now, since I don't do coaching anymore. But the reason is, you know, one of the things they say when it comes to a coaching business that I don't feel like a lot of people mention is like, yes, it can be very lucrative in terms of the money that you make, but in terms of like all the work you have to do, it's just a lot in the sense of, like you have to do the sales calls, you have to do the coaching calls, you have to do the sales calls, you have to do the coaching calls, you have to do the marketing, the email marketing, like you're really like are a one person, you know business, especially if you maybe don't have the cash flow to hire a team.

Tina Lopez: 9:16

I did eventually hire a team, but like that ended up being a situation where I felt like a manager, not really like a leader, and I just didn't enjoy it, and so I got to a point where I was like super burnt out. And this is this is actually the very ironic point that I always tell people, and I'll call this term the money hangover, because there was a period in my business where I made the most amount of money that I ever had, like I would say, maybe five times my corporate, you know, net income or whatever. And so essentially, with that like, it was great in terms of like. Terms of like oh my god, I have so much cash in my business. But it was also very like a very weird experience in the sense of, like you know, in the traditional entrepreneurship space they're like oh, like you have a bunch of money, like your life's gonna change forever, and I'm like, no, my life's pretty much the same. Um, you know, just have more zeros in the bank account, but like, realistically, nothing's really changing and that's fine. But it's like it's a very like harsh reality because you've adopted this, you know, maybe potential future, like payout, but it just, it just it's not matching that right. So that's really a hard pill to swallow.

Tina Lopez: 10:28

But on the second layer, like, for some reason, like I didn't credit this enough, but what led me to that large amount of money was actually me working less, not working more, and so for some reason, I thought to myself like, oh, okay, if I want to repeat this process, then I need to work 10 times harder, which is the complete opposite of, I think, what the universe is trying to tell me is like no, work less. I didn't pay attention, and so it got to a point where I had like 20 back-to-back sales calls and every single one of them said no, and I was like this is not right. What is going on here? I've closed six figures in sales. I know how to do this. What's going on? And then, like I had a coaching call with my coach at the time and she's like Tina, like maybe, like are you burnt out? And I'm like what is that? Like what do you mean? I didn't even know.

Carissa Andrews: 11:20

This is a thing. What are you talking about?

Tina Lopez: 11:22

Exactly. And I was just like no-transcript show up for them. And I couldn't feel like, in good integrity of, you know, signing on new clients if I didn't know I could serve them at the highest level. And so I took that four-month sabbatical and, you know, since I'm an entrepreneur, I kind of was like I still want to get back, but I don't want to get back to the same thing, right, and so I have two missions in life, like, my first mission is to help, you know, people create generational wealth through business, and the second aspect, which is a more recent mission actually, is to help those same people have the time to enjoy that wealth, and that's a very key thing.

Tina Lopez: 12:34

And so I was like okay, you know what, how can I do that? And that's kind of where I landed on content creation, where, like, okay, I can teach, because I love to teach, I love to educate. I just don't like having a very booked out calendar personally, right, a very booked out calendar personally, right. And so I was like, okay, I can teach and educate people at scale with the internet, with a blog, and I can also make money in terms of, like, having a blogging business can be fairly passive in terms of income right, and the revenue streams which we can get into later. But I also had this other layer, layer of like I do not want to be a bottleneck in my business, and so what that means is, like I have an automations background.

Tina Lopez: 13:15

So I was like, okay, if this means that I don't want to be a bottleneck, that means I really need to think about my systems, like, how am I gonna automate things, how am I gonna automate my selling? How am I gonna automate my content creation, my actual, like like you know, admin work as well, so that I could work 10 hours or less per week or even like just not show up at all. And so, you know, it's actually funny. Like last year, I tested that theory where, back in November, I took a month off to go to travel Asia and I was like, ok, you know what, let's check out this automated content business, let's see how it runs. And, to my surprise, okay, you know what, let's check out this automated content business, let's see how it runs. And, to my surprise, this lesson is coming through Working less means more. But I didn't work at all in the month of November and I made so much more money than I've ever had.

Carissa Andrews: 14:04

That entire year and I did nothing.

Tina Lopez: 14:05

So that was just like, wow, right, right.

Carissa Andrews: 14:08

I think that is so key when you think about it too. It's like everybody tells you that you're supposed to just hustle and grind and like that's been like the you know the terms for such a long time that we don't realize that that culture really it really does lead to overwhelming burnout, and especially if you're, you know, a highly active or you know a high performer in your industry, whether it be writing or coaching or whatever, it's so easy to burn out if you don't know where your boundaries are right. Yes, yeah, and sometimes it literally is just figuring out like what is it do you love to do? And then how do you make that easier for yourself?

Carissa Andrews: 14:43

I think I don't know how you feel about AI. I think for me, ai has been a lifesaver when it comes to a lot of the automation of content creation. That isn't necessarily like it's not my creative passion, part of it, you know, like if I'm writing in a quick email or if I'm doing a quick post, it can like learn what I want it to do so much faster, write it so much faster than me sitting here trying to figure out what I'm going to do in something. That isn't like my creative passion. You know what I mean. How do you feel about AI?

Tina Lopez: 15:11

out of curiosity, I actually was a very slow turtle when it came to AI, because I see both sides in the sense of like oh my God, ai is going to take over, and then the other side of like no AI really helps. And here's my conclusion Whenever. I integrate anything into my business. My first question question is can I automate it? And if the answer is no, then probably I'm not gonna, you know, integrate a software or a system in my business because, again, I don't want to um do more work right and so AI like, like you mentioned, it takes care of the things that I don't want to do right in terms of, like, the creative writing process.

Tina Lopez: 15:47

And so I've actually really adopted AI into my business because I've been able to automate the actual like process of it. So, like when I say automate, like I love AI but I will not spend the time actually chatting in a conversation with ChatGPT or whatever, like it's not worth my time. But what people don't know is that you can. So you have ChatGPT, and then you have OpenAI, which is the owner of ChatGPT. Right, basically, I would say ChatGPT is a product of theirs and think of it like that way. And so OpenAI I was like you know what? I wonder if they have like an integration through this platform called Zapier. Zapier is my workflow tool where I automate a lot of systems and processes in my business, and I was actually just sitting in my living room curious. I was like, hmm, I wonder if it came up. And then, surprisingly, they had the integration and I was like, oh wow, this is going to be game changer now, where? Ok, so you're telling me I don't need to sit down manually and talk with an AI, I could just send a prompt through my workflow and it can give me the output back in my workflow. Like hell, yeah, like. I'm going to use that.

Tina Lopez: 16:55

And so it's also from a layer of like. It truly decreases costs in the sense of like time, but also in labor, right? So when you think about a business, the most, the largest expense is labor. Whether you're hiring a VA or like a person like, that's going to be your biggest cost, and so what AI allows me to do is it allows me to truthfully decrease the cost in the sense of like. It's saving me time. I don't, actually, if I don't want to hire a person, I don't have to like spend the time and my time's very valuable and your time's very valuable actually doing it right, because I do consider time as a form of money, in my opinion. And it also decreases cost in the sense of like I can scale faster without relying on a human capacity, and so what I mean by that is like if I need to write, like you know, 50 content pieces or whatever, then, like I can just truly automate that process and get it in a much quicker turnaround time than depending on a human capacity. So, yeah, I love it.

Carissa Andrews: 18:00

I do too. I do too. For me it's been a game changer, if nothing else, for, like, the planning and plotting process for books and novels. If you input information, you can learn so much about what you want to do about your story or like how you could change it or tweak it. Or writing book blurbs no longer the hassle that it used to be Right. It's so great because we can just be like here's what the story is kind of about. Can you make this really cool for readers, like you know, and chat's? Like no problem, I'll get that for you.

Tina Lopez: 18:28

It's great.

Carissa Andrews: 18:29

I think it's one of the greatest tools. Okay, so, for authors that are new to automation which I would think that at this point a lot of people who are following me aren't completely new to automation but there might be Do you have any first steps or tools that you recommend to start around automating sales and lead generation? For you know, obviously, books for getting people into their funnels, like maybe they don't even know about a funnel, like what is your starting point?

Tina Lopez: 18:55

So I'm going to go to basics. Like, before we even get into automation, I think it's important to start with documentation, right? And so what I mean by that is, like, here's what I do, like whenever I want to create, like, an automation in my business, or I'm just noticing like things take a lot of time and I just want to get off my plate, like I actually write down and like try to draw in my notebook of like, okay, what are the steps that I do in order to like actually accomplish this task or this outcome? Right, and so, if I write the steps down, like write it like almost like in a workflow, like in the the sense of like, okay, step A, I do this, step B, I do this, or step C, I go to this platform, right, and so- Kind of like a standard operating procedure.

Carissa Andrews: 19:35

That's what you think, yeah.

Tina Lopez: 19:38

It's a standard operating procedure, but like more so like I'm a visual person, so I like to draw like flow charts.

Tina Lopez: 19:44

Okay, yeah, yeah, and so I like to draw flowcharts where I'm like, okay, well, I need to go to Airtable to grab this record, I need to connect it to my email platform, etc. Etc. Right, and so I'm like, okay, if I draw the steps out, then what I can do is I could is because the best tool that I use is Zapier. Zapier is a workflow automation tool and so majority of the time, they have thousands of integrations and if you don't know what integrations are, think of them as like connections to platforms, right? So if you want your email marketing platform to start talking to, let's just say, instagram, then you will need an integration or connection to link them both so they can start talking to each other, right, and so if I have the workflow chart, then I can start building in Zapier the connections or the integrations to start that workflow. And so there's kind of two layers of like trigger, in the sense of think of a trigger as what starts, like what triggers the workflow. Right, maybe, if I get an email from X person and then basically, zapier will see that, will read my emails and will see like, oh, this person emailed you trigger this workflow, right, as an example. So that's just like a very, very basic and I hope it comes across as basic.

Tina Lopez: 21:11

I've been in this for so long, but when we think about automating lead gen sales and things like that, it doesn't even come down to the tactical aspect of like, yes, you can use the tool, the tool is helping you.

Tina Lopez: 21:25

But the better question is like, what is the strategy that I need to leverage in order to really take advantage of this tool? Right? And so, like you know, I like to have I'll give you an example of like how I run my business. Like there are kind of like three phases of my business right, I have traffic, and then I have nurture and then I have conversions. Right, and so that's like a pretty standard flow. And so, when I think about traffic, I always like to think about the highest return on time. And most, you know, maybe authors, creators they think to themselves, like, oh, I need to post on social media every day, or I need to write every day and blog every day in order to get tons of traffic. Well, if you've been in this business for as long as maybe you and I have both have, maybe, like you've realized, it's not as fast as you would like it to be.

Tina Lopez: 22:14

Right, some people think, oh, I'll post a video on TikTok and I'll get a thousand subscribers the next day, like I wish that would happen, but that does not. That's not the reality for me. It's like the 1%, and if you're part of the 99% like me, it's not going to work right. And so the biggest strategy that I've been able to figure out to get the highest return on time is actually collaborations. So my traffic strategy doesn't rely on me posting content as much. It actually mostly relies on me talking to people, connecting with people like you, doing collaborations with other individuals. And so when I think of collaborations, I'm thinking of bundles, freebie swaps, things like that, where essentially the definition of each is like, if you're doing a freebie swap say, for example, I promote a freebie to your list, you promote a freebie to my list, that is the swap, everybody wins, I get access to a new audience, you get access to a new audience, the access to a new audience, the audience, both get something for free, like it's a win-win scenario, right. And so for bundles, it's the same. It's kind of the same concept, a bit more at a higher scale, but anyways, like that is the traffic and what I love about. But when I say like automating it, like. I have certain methodologies which would be way too granular to like speak on this podcast about. I have a whole course talking about it.

Tina Lopez: 23:32

But when I think of automation, I'm also thinking about the highest return on time. So it will take me maybe 20 minutes, max an hour a month for me to do collaborations with people and the return on time of that is I'll get. I'll add like hundreds of email subscribers to my list in the next 30 days Like I average maybe about like 500 email subscribers just on an hour's worth of time, because I'm being very particular with my time. Content is not the fastest way to grow. Collaborations is the faster way to grow and so when that's like the, the high level strategy, now, when we think about like the actual, like sales piece, um, that really goes into the next phase of nurturing and this is where you can leverage um email automations in the sense of like.

Tina Lopez: 24:22

How are you connecting with the leads like I personally do not do direct to sale as often as most people do.

Tina Lopez: 24:28

Most people think they would should do because you direct to sale as often as most people do. Most people think they should do because you want to grab their email and then start the conversation direct to sale, because if I pointed my traffic direct to an offer, well great, they see the sales page or they see the book, let's just say in this example but I have no way of following up with them. To make sure that no-transcript automate the nurturing piece, you can automate the follow-up, so if a person signs up for my email list, then I can automatically start sending them emails about like hey, this is a course that's going to be really helpful for you, or hey, did you check out this valuable resource? All those things to start the conversation. And automation allows me to do that at scale. Because I know if I add a million subscribers to my email list tomorrow, a, I probably need to upgrade my email plan, but B, I know that my selling is taken care of, and so that's what automation allows you to take care of things at scale.

Carissa Andrews: 25:45

That's so good. So, when it comes to authors, it would you recommend, then, like if they were to run ads, for instance? I mean, in some cases we have direct to sales stores, so when you they land there, the pixel picks them up, or if they put something in a cart, they will get it like a. Hey, you missed out on this thing. But if they don't have that kind of functionality and they're trying to run ads, would you actually recommend them having, like a, a freebie, sign up for a reader magnet, for example, and then, once they're in the reader magnet, then start running those automations to nurture them into, like your writing world?

Tina Lopez: 26:18

Yeah, that's actually exactly what I would say. So what I've seen because I think I have dabbled a little bit in the author space for a brief period and from what I recall, like some programs that I was in, like we're talking about is like I do know you can do like snippets. So, in the sense of like, if you want to do like the first chapter I mean even Amazon does this right Like where they'll give you like the glimpse of like the first chapter of a book that could be the freebie right and then the freebie, they will get the first chapter for free and then they can get the rest of the book through your sales site, things like that, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do that a lot, where it's like the first three chapters or it's like a little snippet where you can go to a book funnel landing page or something and it allows you to get the first three chapters and you can read it and then obviously go on, hopefully to finish reading the book.

Carissa Andrews: 27:08

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Okay, so I think this is probably your strategy. But you said that you've successfully added a thousand email subscribers in less than 90 days without relying on social. Is that the strategy we were just talking about then, exactly?

Tina Lopez: 27:21

Like collaborations, Like okay. So I personally have never had a great experience with ads, I don't know why I just I don't feel like ads like me and I'm probably doing it wrong. That's okay. But this is where I say like okay.

Tina Lopez: 27:35

When you think about ads, right, what is it that it's actually doing, right? So what you're doing with ads, it's a pay to play way to access an audience. That's essentially what it is. And so, like I'm like, well, if I, why not? Why do I want to pay for that? I don't want to pay for that. So I'm like if I want to access an audience, let me create a one-one scenario for everyone. Like I mentioned, like freebie swaps, bundles, all those things collaborations, truthfully, have been a way for me to get ad level, reach for free. And so, like you know, when I think about what I'm doing in terms of my activities, here's what this hour a month breaks down to Like I'm applying to bundles, which maybe take 10 minutes per application to fill out. I probably do like four or five a month, depending on the season, right, Some are slow, some are high.

Carissa Andrews: 28:22

When you say bundle, is that like your courses going into bundles, that sort of thing?

Tina Lopez: 28:27

Yes. So I have a course that's usually a paid course and then I will contribute that course to a bundle. So in the bundle it's free. And basically the way that bundles work is that, like you have a host, you have the person who is running this bundle and they need contributors to increase the bundle size. So they'll reach out to me and say, hey, do you want to apply for it? And I'll say, yes, I'll apply, I'll contribute this product for free and it increases the value size. But what ends up happening is that all the contributors as well as the bundle hosts they promote that one bundle. The host gets obviously the biggest reward because all that traffic is going directly to them. But what happens is that audience member will look in the bundle and they'll sign up individually for the courses that are make most sense for them. So I'll get leads that way and it's it's a really great strategy because that has been, that is, the higher strategies in terms of the highest return. And again, it only takes me 20 minutes maybe max to do like everything involved with participating in a bundle.

Tina Lopez: 29:28

The other layer, which is actually something that I've been really testing out this month, is freebie swaps, and so I actually have a whole automation which I'll teach in the course of like how I actually like set this up. But basically, like I have an application where you know it's on a. It's an evergreen application, it's accepted on a rolling basis. Like, people apply. If they're a good fit for my audience, it's free to do a freebie swap with me. People will apply and I will review their application.

Tina Lopez: 29:56

Takes me two minutes to review an application and then I'll accept or deny them and then they'll go through a follow-up flow where they need to confirm their spot with me and so what that actually has allowed me to do, what I've actually been doing is I've been in the application. I asked, like what is your audience size? So I can really track what is the reach that I'm reaching out to these people, and so far we've secured over 130,000 people that we're going to be reaching this year without social media. And it literally took me two minutes to review this application and that's we're booked out all the way until august at this time of recording. And that is like why are people not doing this?

Carissa Andrews: 30:39

right. Right when I think about it from the author perspective too. Like we do newsletter swaps a lot, and so I think there's a lot of us that do. They're not necessarily freebies, it's just that we're swapping like mentions of our books in each other's newsletters. But the idea of bundling together books I mean they do, you know, oftentimes like an omnibus edition, where it's like a book bundle, like all in one book.

Carissa Andrews: 31:00

But I'm thinking a lot about like how direct you know, we're kind of moving away from retailers in the indie space and a lot of us have book bundles of our own stuff. But it would be really interesting. It's like we could do bigger book bundles on hosted sites and like bring other authors in and share it that way. Or we also do that thing. I mentioned book funnel. They do have like group giveaways, but those are freebies of everything and so it's harder to get the emails in that way at least what, from what I found? But it's like it just kind of got my brain turning. It's like how cool is that to be able to come, come together and host this thing? Do you guys, when you're doing the, the bundles, do you have like a set price where everybody kind of gets paid a certain amount, or is it all free?

Tina Lopez: 31:42

So the bundle, in terms of me contributing as a contributor, it's to the bundle, it's for free. The advantage is that I'm getting so much email subscribers on the backend, right, so, like. This is why it's really important to have some type of upsell funnel on the backend to make it worth it, right. So say, for example, I give away a $37 course, right, yes, it's free to the bundle, but on the back end, I have a really good course that pairs with that $37 course, right? And so that person will get upsold to a $97 course and, oh, maybe they buy another one of mine. And then I think it's important to think about let's not think about pennies, let's think about like. Let's not think about like pennies, let's think about dollars, the yes, you're giving something away for free on the front end, but you make so much more money on the back end in the sense of people going to buy your content later. But they also do like, they refer you to like.

Tina Lopez: 32:37

I've like had people like reach out to me and say like, oh, like, I actually found you because I saw you in this and that and all that stuff, and I'm like, oh, wow, like collaborations are working. Also, like, just an idea that I may want to throw out. If you ever decide to host a bundle for yourself and your audience. A really cool way that I can see this playing out is why don't you kind of create, like kind of like, either a freebie, extravaganza or whatever? Why don't you kind of create like kind of like, either a freebie, extravaganza or whatever, like that could be the bundle where, like, you could be the host and every per every author you have people apply to be part of this bundle. Right, they'll give like that free snippet, the three chapters or whatever. And then, if it's for a specific niche, like the romance niche or whatever, then, like, all romance authors can be in that bundle and then they can give the first couple chapters away for free.

Carissa Andrews: 33:23

And then, if they have their, that bundle, and then they can give the first couple of chapters away for free, and then, if they have, their funnels right, then they can do the automated selling to get the rest of the book Right, right, right, or the rest of the series, if there happens to be a series in it. Yes, yeah, you could keep on, keep right on going. So, out of curiosity, where do you go to find these bundles? You said that you typically sign up for four to five. Where do you go to find these bundles?

Tina Lopez: 33:43

So there's a couple. So there's one called Ultimate Bundles which I use. It's a really great platform and resource. There are a couple of Facebook groups that I like look into as well, but also, like I've noticed, like networking plays a huge role, like even like. So say, for example, like you have a bundle right. Say you're the freaking audience member who is participating in the bundle. You're not even a host.

Tina Lopez: 34:11

Actually, this is how it all started for me. I purchased a bundle because I was like ooh, I want all these products for one price. That'd be pretty cool, it saves me so much money. And so I was so curious, and then much money. And so I was like so curious, I was like, and then I was like there and I was like that's actually a really cool strategy. So then I reached out to the person directly and I was like hey, like, how did you participate in this bundle? And then you know she's like oh, like I do this, I do that and all these things. And I'm like oh, okay, that's pretty cool. And then you kind of just like network. And then that person later on is like oh, I have a bundle. Do you want to be interested in it as a contributor. So it's like a lot of it is like word of mouth and also a lot of it is networking and being in the right places and communities and stuff like that.

Carissa Andrews: 34:54

That's so smart. I love that. Okay. So what does leverage mean in the context of a creator business, and how can authors apply this principle to maximize the impact of their own content with minimal effort? That's a big question yeah, really it's funny.

Tina Lopez: 35:10

I've been um kind of toying with this idea and I'm going to trademark this one day, so nobody grabbed it on this, uh, but I've it's been said here first yes, yes, yes.

Tina Lopez: 35:21

So I want to make that clear no, I always like, have been thinking of like. I feel like I'm a leveraged creator, and when I say by leverage, people usually think of ads, they think of money, they think of all these different types of things. The way that I determine it is, like I mentioned earlier is the highest return on time. I want to build a business that is sustainable, scalable, but also does not require me to be there, and so my time is more important to me than money. And so when I'm thinking about my time, I'm thinking about, okay, what is it that I can do to get the highest return on time? And so what that means is I'm investing in automations, I'm investing in traffic strategies that are minimal but create maximum return, and so those are the two layers where it's, like, you know, I think a lot of people get overwhelmed with the content businesses because they have so much shit to do and like, it's just, it's not necessary, right? And so, like, I think maybe one of my unique strengths is that, like, I like to simplify a lot, and I think a lot of people have a harder time simplifying than maybe making things more complex, right? And so what I mean by that is like thinking about the strategies that are direct in the sense of like, okay, like.

Tina Lopez: 36:40

Let's just go from the basic thing. Like why are you posting on social media? What is the purpose behind it? Oh, I want to get more sales. Okay, so, if you want to get more sales, why are you posting on social media? Right, right, if you want to get sales, start talking to people, start reaching out to people directly, because that is the fastest way for you to get a sale. Not to create content, not to create a website, a blog. All these different layers before somebody can just reach out and talk to you.

Carissa Andrews: 37:06

I think there's this layer here, isn't it? It's like yeah, I don't want to actually reach out to people because they'd have to talk to them. Oh my God.

Tina Lopez: 37:13

I get it, I completely get it.

Tina Lopez: 37:15

But, like, honestly, being a business owner, you kind of have to be somewhat fearless, right and so, and so you know, like, when I think about leverage, it's like what is the fastest way for me to get to the outcome that I want and what is the way where I can do the least amount of time to get there, and so, like, this is why I'm such a big believer in automations and using AI to leverage.

Tina Lopez: 37:40

You know your time and like doing all those things, because it's like, yes, it will require upfront work. Believe me, I've spent three years building this business and it isn't until this third year that I'm getting on podcasts actually sharing it, because I feel confident that I've actually done it right, and what that means to me is that I just truthfully, I don't spend a lot of time in my business anymore because I don't have to, because I have a daily content generator that creates content for me every single day, and I'm using AI and automation to post on social media every day. I have automations that are doing the selling for me on the backend of my email marketing. I have traffic strategies that only take me an hour a month to do all these things and it's like, wow, like I, I truthfully want more people to know about this, because I'm so sick and tired of seeing creators, authors, individuals getting burnt out in their business because it's not necessary. I think we're really in this phase where people are just sick of it. People are sick of, like, hustle culture.

Tina Lopez: 38:42

I'm sick of it and I think it's okay to be hired and find another way.

Carissa Andrews: 38:46

Yeah, I think it all comes back down to that authenticity thing too.

Carissa Andrews: 38:50

It's like, as readers, as authors because typically we're both entrepreneurs we're all looking for that connection with the right people. Anyway, we're looking for the readers who read our books, we're looking for the people who get us, we're looking for content creators or people who are talking about the things that we're looking for help on, like we, we want that connection more than we want just to be, uh, you know, sold into another funnel of whatever, and so it's it's fun to have even and it doesn't even have to like, I think, about authors. They're so introverted many of us and it's's like the concept of having to talk to someone is scary, and it's like it doesn't have to even be a long conversation. It could just be hey, I really love that post, or hey, I really love the book that you wrote. Thanks for writing it, it made my day, or you know something. And as you begin to have like these smaller conversations, you just get like better at it and you get known about having conversations and being more authentically you.

Carissa Andrews: 39:44

It's just we'd like, like you said, we like to complicate things yeah, yeah, yeah so what are your top tools or platforms for automating your content and repurposing you know content or promotions and getting engagement out like? Do you have anything in specific that you use? Yeah, other than obviously zapier?

Tina Lopez: 40:03

I love my tech stack. I've actually been simplifying my tech stack as well recently, so here are the ones that made the cut. So Zapier is like game changer. Everyone should leverage Zapier. It's the best tool that I know for automating workflows and they have really great support. And Airtable love Airtable. It's my way to organize all my content, my way to kind of like do automations through it, and it also integrates very well with Zapier. And then, in terms of email marketing, I use MailerLite. There are people who use different platforms. I like MailerLite because, honestly, like, their free plan was amazing and maybe that's how they get you. I think that's a really great strategy for them. But, like once when you set up the automations and it's free to set up through their free plan, like, I just have not gone back because it's too much of a hassle for me to switch over.

Carissa Andrews: 40:52

To be honest, yeah, I love mailerlite as well. I use it in my businesses as well and it connects so nice with shopify. It does all the things.

Tina Lopez: 40:58

It's so great yeah yeah, and so male lights. And then let me think, open ai like I I. So here's. Here's a fun fact about open ai. Open ai, I don't actually have a subscription to chat chat gpt. I don't think it's necessary because you can go directly to the father which is open ai and you can pay per use. So I'm like, well, if I rather pay per use than pay monthly subscription, that's great. And like I think my bills for open ai like I just got a bill for open ai, it was 65 cents like I don't know why people are going directly to chat gpt. Maybe they want that chat feature, but open ai playground has that feature, so so I'm like, well, we might as well just do that.

Carissa Andrews: 41:44

Yes, see, I personally have a subscription, and the reason I like it is because of the custom AIs, the custom GBTs, where we can create flows and information, where it houses more information about a particular series or about a particular part of your business or whatever, and so I have that very specific. So when I go to that one, I don't have to reprompt it again and be like okay, remember, this is who we are and what we're doing here. Like it just does its thing, and so I don't know if automating it in that regard does it remember what you're trying to have it do.

Tina Lopez: 42:15

So I do believe ChatGPT has an integration. So there's OpenAI, which is one app in Zapier, but I also believe ChatGPT has an app as well. The one thing that I don't know is, like, if it remembers, like maybe all your previous conversations, it does have a way where, like you can basically use Zapier to have a chat with them, because it will use like a memory key. So like, say, for example, like you are talking to this chat GPT and the conversation is related to, like authors, right, you'll put that as the key name and then, like, as you do, more actions in Zapier. So long as you put the key name in the chat GPT prompt or in the action, then it will continue that conversation flow. You know, I will say, because Zapier is on a per task payment as well, so the more back and forth you're going to have with it in ChatGPT, you're going to pay in tasks.

Carissa Andrews: 43:10

Yeah, the higher Zapier would be. That makes sense.

Tina Lopez: 43:13

That's a trade off.

Carissa Andrews: 43:14

It is Absolutely. It's always interesting to talk about automation because, for me, I love the strategy behind it and I love learning new tools, but the the like my brain goes how do you like what with? Like I have air table for like some of my books, but I'm like I don't know how to use it super well, but it's linked to one of my other automation things, so it's great in that regard and I'm like how would you look? Like? My brain's always trying to make those connections, so I'm like I'm, I'm, we're going to need to talk about your course. That's what we're going to need to talk about. Okay, so transitioning to a fully automated business obviously requires significant changes in mindset. Obviously. What were the key mindset shifts that contributed to your success and how can authors cultivate these attitudes as well?

Tina Lopez: 43:56

So I think the key mindset changes the biggest one was again return on time. Like I do not return on time, but also like I'm happy to pay for a software. Like the simplest thing is of like I'm not going to bootstrap this to go on every single free platform because it's costing more time for me to do the free access to different softwares. Like it's just not worth my time, right, and so, like I really do believe time should be the new currency. Like if, if this, if this software is going to save me 20 hours a month on doing this, then I'm going to be paying the $50 subscription because my time is worth more than $50 an hour. Right and so like that was one of the bigger shifts for me. But also like another mindset shift is like you gotta be creative. Like I truly like.

Tina Lopez: 44:54

One of the hard things that was hard for me was that like I couldn't find anyone that was doing what I was doing. Like yeah, there's these people who like say they have like a fully automated business and all that stuff, but then when you look at the nitty gritty details, so it's like no, they don't. They have like a whole team of VAs doing their work and they pay them $3 an hour from the Philippines or whatever, and like it's just like I'm like, okay, well, that doesn't resonate to me, like I don't like that and also this layer of like I don't want to be a manager, like I don't want to have to feel bad for telling you to do work.

Carissa Andrews: 45:30

Right, and so Right Right.

Tina Lopez: 45:32

Like I'd rather tell like an automation to do the work and like they work with me like 24, seven, right, and so there's that. But also, like, when I say be creative, you kind of have to be patient because, like there are some use cases or some animations that I've created that I literally just had to dig and do research on. Like how can I do this? I needed to do this and people didn't. There's nobody on the internet who was doing what I was doing, and so, like, lucky for anyone who's listening to this podcast because, like, I already figured it out, right. But like, yeah, like it's just, it's hard. It's sometimes really hard because, like, I'm trying to find something and I cannot find something. So a lot of the times I just have to build my own damn solution because I cannot invest or find someone who's done it before.

Carissa Andrews: 46:19

Right, that's so good, though, having that, that mindset of curiosity, it sounds like like being curious enough to dig in and try to figure out, like, how can these things work and how can you leverage it in a better way than you're obviously doing right now, or whatever like, and then not letting that resistance or that roadblock of not seeing someone else doing it hang you up and go like, oh well, I guess I can't do it like being audacious enough to be like, guess it's on me.

Tina Lopez: 46:45

You know yeah.

Carissa Andrews: 46:46

So good. I love that. That's such a good mindset to have, and it's obvious why you continued onward with where you're going and why you've been so successful with it, thank you. So when it comes to challenges, though, when you've been setting up those automation systems in it, you know, know, obviously, the lack of others doing it aside did you have anything big that you had to overcome, that you had to, like, push through, and are there any pitfalls that authors maybe need to be aware of?

Tina Lopez: 47:16

So I don't know if this really this can relate to authors, but I think it's more of a confidence piece. So I'll give an example. There is this course, actually, that I created. It's our nine dollar daily content generator, and I'm not here to sell you the course or whatever. I'm just here to tell you about, like, how I created it Right, $9 daily content generator. I did not want to create it actually, for a very long time I had it in my business. So our daily content generator is an automation, it's a workflow and actually I recently got a testimonial from an author who uses it and she said it's been great. So I'll get to that in a second.

Tina Lopez: 47:55

But what ends up happening was last year I had this daily content generator. I called it in my business. Basically, what it does is it's an automation. It randomly goes to my content database, pulls a random piece of content and I use AI to spin it to post Instagram Reel to YouTube Short to Twitter thread, linkedin post all those things right. Linkedin posts all those things right. It's an automation that goes on daily. I don't touch it, I don't use it, it just creates content for me and I think that it was like okay, that's going to be very helpful, right? Because I knew that for me, I get burnt out with creating content. I'm like screw that. I need automation. So this is what we did.

Tina Lopez: 48:35

And this is where AI got really popular and so I created that. It was a year in my business that I've done that all of last year and a lot of my creator friends would tell me like Tina, like can you just create the damn thing? Like can you just like sell it to me, like I will buy it? And I was like no, no, I don't want to, because I'm like what if people are like going to say like no, I don't like that, I don't like the way it looks, or like like it's too difficult, like I'm a very technically savvy person, I would say and I'm like what if people come to me for technology and like I don't, I don't know, like I just don't want to deal with that personally?

Tina Lopez: 49:12

And then I got to a point where, like one of my friends, um, she was telling me like how burnt out she was and I was like I was just I. I told her I'm like I can't relate, not in a bad way, but like in a way where it's like I'm sorry you're going through that and I kind of realized I'm like you know what it's, I'm being selfish. It's really not about me anymore. It's really about, like, the individuals who are exhausted trying to compete with some algorithm that doesn't serve them Right, and so I.

Tina Lopez: 49:37

I'm like let me just do it. So I created it. So I had a, I had a goal. Actually, I don't create anything, by the way, unless, like, I get paid to create it. So I always I'm a very big believer in pre-selling and so I created it at nine dollars because I, for me, it's not really a ton about money, it's really mostly about, like, helping people. Like my problem is, you know, with that mission of helping people have the time to enjoy that wealth, like if I can help people save time, that's when I do it. And so my goal was, like I always do a pre-sale period of like two months just to give it to like a good grace period, and I said, okay, like 10 students, like that's 90 dollars, like I just want 10 students to validate it, send an email, and you know I closed, I Send an email and you know I closed.

Tina Lopez: 50:21

I was on an email on a Friday and then, like the next Monday, like I got 10 sales. I was like, oh shit, like okay, well, I guess I guess Universe is like got this. And I was like, okay, you know what, that's fine, and this was an internal go right. And I was like, you know what? Like that's a fluke, like it's not, it's not real, it's not happening. So like let me, let me like try to shoot for 20. And then, like a week later we got 20 and I was like oh, I was like oh, damn, okay. And then by the time the end pre-sale went through, we have over 40. We had over 40 students that bought the pre-sale and I was like, oh shit, like I guess I guess I'm making this thing.

Tina Lopez: 51:03

Yeah, I'm like, guess I'm making this, and now we have over 100 students who bought that, um, nine dollar offer and it makes me really happy. And the one thing that I will say is that, like, I was just curious because a lot of people like to buy courses but they don't really like to like implement them, right. So I was just like, okay, well, like does it actually help people? And so an author, a young writer's author, actually ended up buying the course. She actually did a whole testimonial for me and she told me she's like in the, in the video, she's like I was looking for something that like could do exactly this, but like it doesn't need to be me, like I don't want to hire a team because that's expensive. I don't want to like actually do the work because it's so much time. And she's like I saw this on Instagram and like I purchased it. And she's like when it was nine dollars, I thought it was like a no-brainer and I was like, yeah, that was the whole point on why I made it nine dollars. And right, she said in the video she's like it was. She like it's the best thing ever, like I set it up. She set it up in her business and now she doesn't have to worry about content. And that was. That was literally the type of testimonial that I wanted, where I was like I just really want to help people save time and like that helped people.

Tina Lopez: 52:13

And the way that I can relate this to maybe authors, to your original question is, like lot of the times, like you're gonna create something that's good for you and you're gonna think nobody wants it, but like literally just put it out there. Like you don't need to create the thing that you're not sure people want. Like, but just like put it out, do a pre-sale test, the waters right, and if it works, great, if it doesn't work, also great. That means you didn't waste your time creating something that nobody wanted, right. And like it's just the courage just to do it. Like I, it took me over a year to say like, oh, okay, I'll do it. And I really kicking myself because I'm like damn it, I could have done this last year right a lot of it was just like it took me a year to get the confidence to even sell it right.

Carissa Andrews: 53:00

Isn't that funny, I think sometimes we do just hang ourselves up with all those what-ifs and oh, I want especially if you have a thing tied to it like I really want to help people with this thing, but what if they don't like it? Yeah, and then all of a sudden it's like you trip yourself up and the next thing you know you've gone down a weird tangent rabbit hole somewhere and you're like what?

Carissa Andrews: 53:19

what's happening right here yeah, it's so funny, or we? We tell ourselves oh, I don't want to do this thing. For me it was. I never saw myself writing romance ever. I was an urban fantasy author. That's it that I love the urban fantasy thing. Fast forward 12 years later and I'm like I'm so burnt out with fantasy right now. I just want to do something different. Now I'm rom-com too. So it's like you never say Like. Sometimes you just say you don't want to do something and then all of a sudden you're like oh, but if I twist it just a little bit, I could do that. It sounds like fun. Sometimes we just have to look at it from a slightly different angle.

Tina Lopez: 53:52

Yeah.

Carissa Andrews: 53:52

So where do you see the future of automation in the creator economy heading, especially for authors Like do you foresee more AI being integrated into everything, or do you think there are other emerging technologies that are going to take off and we should keep our eyes on?

Tina Lopez: 54:08

I think AI is going to be really helpful. I don't think it's going to replace the human element of AI is great, but it's not perfect, However.

Tina Lopez: 54:16

I do see the elements of it getting to the point of being perfect, and you know some people have their own opinions about that.

Tina Lopez: 54:23

What I would say is that, when it comes to AI, like you are better.

Tina Lopez: 54:27

If you want to stay in business, I think you do need to take into account AI, and I'm not trying to say this in a bad way but, like I see lots of businesses using AI because it is such a time saver and it's also such a huge cost savings and, like, even from the element, I don't think it's going to replace you. I think it's like a lot of people take it as like oh, it's gonna take my job away. No, I don't think it's gonna take your job away. I think it's going to be a new skill set that is required of you to leverage right, because, like, humans are more powerful with. It doesn't mean AI is the all great being that people are probably scared of, right, I think it's just a tool in your tool stack. It's kind of like it reminds me of how computers back in the day were such a big thing oh, my God, you don't need to use a typewriter, you can use a keyboard, right and so that was revolutionary.

Carissa Andrews: 55:15

People were thinking like oh, my job's going to be done, like no, it just makes your job more efficient, like we're in a knowledge worker society and like you need to leverage the knowledge that you have at your disposal. Yeah, absolutely Well. And plus, you can like. There are aspects of your job as an author that maybe you're not the greatest at copywriting. Maybe one of them and we mentioned book blurbs like it can under.

Carissa Andrews: 55:36

You could be like you know, brian Cohen, I'm so sorry I'm using you as an example, but you could be like hey, I really would like to be able to write a book blurb based off of my book. Here's the synopsis that I know of my book so far and the things I want you to focus on. Here are the tropes I want you to know using, like Brian Cohen's greatest, like hits you know, so that we can create a book description. Go ahead and make one for me and it will understand Brian Cohen and what he's trying to teach and how he does. And so you could create something so simple, especially when you've been, you know, working at it and it isn't clicking in your brain.

Carissa Andrews: 56:11

I think sometimes that's that's the hardest thing. And so when you can tell it exactly what you want and how you want it done, it just all of a sudden makes everything so much easier and then you just tweak it like if. If you don't like how it created it, just tweak it. It doesn't have to be everything, it's great. Absolutely, yeah, okay. So what advice would you give to authors who are intrigued by the idea of automation but they're still unsure, like where to start? Like can they tiptoe into things? Or is it one of your courses? And, if so, like where do they go to find that?

Tina Lopez: 56:44

So, if you want to tiptoe I think I did allude this to this earlier I think the best course in terms of not to toot my own horn, but I do think the $9 daily content generator like we do have a testimonial from an author, and so I think that's a really good place to start. It's accessible, truthfully like, it's affordable and it's actually a great way for you to take off like one of the biggest things that's probably taking the most of your time, which is content creation. Right and so like, if you can leverage that automation that we teach, then you're able to actually be able to, like, create the content without actually creating the content, but get your time back to focus on things that actually matter more to you. Maybe that's writing books or writing emails, but at least the one thing you can guarantee is that it's not going to be creating content for an algorithm.

Carissa Andrews: 57:29

Right. How long does it take to implement all of it, Like if they were to start with the course and get everything going? How long does it take to put it in place?

Tina Lopez: 57:35

I think the course is maybe like 90 minutes total. Like you can get it done within a day. Like I'm a very big person, like since we think about return on time, like I cut the fluff of. Like my course is very like straightforward, simple, to the point. And like in terms of like actually setting it up, like I've laid out the course in such a way where it's like here, like it does need to be done chronologically, like you can't skip steps Right, because, like, the first thing is like a lot of this preparation in terms of you need to get your API keys, you need to go sign up for these softwares so that you can actually do the automation Right. Yeah, that's like the front part of it.

Tina Lopez: 58:14

The like one video, I think, is like maybe 30 or 40 minutes long, but that's actually like me. Me I literally walk with you and I film a video. I'm like let's build it from scratch together. Like here's the document that I give you in this course. Here's, on the right side, the workflow. Like I'm literally just pointing you to the document pointing into the automation. We're doing it together on the video recording and that's been helpful. But it, like with all things, like with courses like it takes you as long as you want it to right and so you know, if you want to get it done within a weekend, you can.

Tina Lopez: 58:46

If you want to get done with a day, you can. If you want it to take a month, you could also do that, but that depends on you, so good.

Carissa Andrews: 58:53

Is there a course that it flows into? Then, like what? Let's say, you get that done and now you want to start integrating more things in your author business. Is there more to be able to check out?

Tina Lopez: 59:02

so we have, uh, I would say, three flagship courses. So we have our nine dollar daily content generator and then we have our audience profits course. So that's kind of everything that I taught about, or talked about about using bundles, free results, collaborations to grow your audience, because I like to think of this in phases, right. So, like if you're a creator, like there are three things you need to focus on. You need to think about traffic. You also need to think about money in terms of how do you get money right. So the daily content generator covers your basis in terms of helping you build a brand, because when I think about content, content or social media I would say the only reason why I use social media is to build my brand, but I'm not relying on it to actually grow my leads. If it brings in leads, great, but that's not my main source. My main source of leads is collaborations, and so that's where Audience Profits comes in, where it actually can leverage collaborations. It teaches you the strategy for that.

Tina Lopez: 59:51

The other aspect is your first $100 as an affiliate marketer. Since I'm someone who loves affiliate marketing, I only prevent products that I love. I've made over fifteen thousand dollars from affiliate marketing, like I basically like again, like I teach everything that I know about affiliate marketing in that course. Because, like, the great thing is that if you've got audience profits, then you have an email list you have the people to promote to and then you have another way monetizing it. In this case, authors can monetize it through their book, but they can also monetize it through affiliate links, right? So say, for example, like you have another author friend who goes really well with your niche, why don't you just use affiliate marketing? Right, right?

Carissa Andrews: 1:00:32

Yeah, that's so smart. Okay. So where can my audience go to find all the things Like? What site should they go to get signed up for the course?

Tina Lopez: 1:00:39

So if find all, the things like is what site should they go to get signed up for the course? So if they want to sign up for the course, I will send you, uh, the link to add to the show notes for the nine dollar daily content generator. But I've also um, since we touched a little bit on email marketing, I've actually would love anyone who's listening to this podcast. I've given you specifically our welcome email template. It's usually nine dollars, but I'm giving it to you completely for free. You just need to use the coupon code podcast24. And this welcome email template has been perfect for me because it actually allows me to filter and see, like, who's the right people for on my list and who's not people that shouldn't be on my list. It gives people that kind of filter aspect of it.

Carissa Andrews: 1:01:16

So I think it's so good, yeah, and I will make sure that the show notes include all of that information for sure. So well, tina, thank you so much. I would love to pick your brain all day long. We'll have to bring you back and talk more, because we obviously we didn't get into really affiliate marketing or any of those things. So I would love to have you back and chat again. But thank you so much for being here today.

Tina Lopez: 1:01:36

Thank you for having me Happy to be here. Thank you for having me happy to be here.

Carissa Andrews: 1:01:42

All right guys, there you go, isn't tina awesome? Well, thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I think it was a real eye-opener for me. When I first recorded this, I was still in the throes of the course that I was doing for jen sincero, trying badass to eight weeks or eight weeks to badass, I think, is what it was called and I was looking into automations and I was trying to figure out how to lighten my own workload.

Carissa Andrews: 1:02:06

This past year has really been eye-opening, I think, for me when it comes to burnout and when it comes to like really feeling the effects of doing too much with too little return, and what I mean by that is, you know, I have three pen names. I have Author Revolution, I have the podcast and then I also have a couple of freelance clients, one of which I just recently let go, and I've had them forever before Author Revolution even became a thing, and so now it's like this time of cleansing, this time of kind of releasing things that aren't working or that are no longer serving me or lighting me up. I'm learning more about human design. I'm kind of going into a lot of energetic work and learning how to realign my energy and my system, and I'm finding that I have. You know, normally I'm a manifesting generator for any of you who are interested in human design and so I can generate quite a bit of energy with all the projects that I have going on, all the things that I'm doing. But there is a certain level where, when I don't see the results personally that I want, I will start to spin out right, I will start to feel dissatisfaction or frustration, and when I operate from that place, manifesting generators are operating from their misaligned place, and so, even though success comes, even though things are working in some degree, they're not working to the way I want to see them, and so then I try to strive more.

Carissa Andrews: 1:03:35

Maybe you can relate to this. Right, you try to do more thinking okay, I just need to pivot. Oh, I just need to do this thing, oh, I just need to whatever. And this past summer really put into sharp contrast that I need to do less. I need to do less and not more, and so there's been a lot of introspection going on and a lot of thinking about. You know, what is the most important part of my author career? What is the most important part of doing Author Revolution? What is the most important part of my author career? What is the most important part of doing Author Revolution? Why am I going through all the work of Author Revolution?

Carissa Andrews: 1:04:05

Like, the podcast makes no money. Right, there's no money in it, it's just my love of authorship, of writing, of publishing, of learning new things and wanting to share that with you, and that's the reason I've been doing this for 251 episodes. But it's reaching a point where I'm not entirely certain that I want to continue doing it and I'm not quite sure what that's going to look like yet. And so I mean, don't get me wrong. I love the podcast, I love being able to talk to some really cool people, but I feel like it's possibly run its course and nothing's going to change anytime soon. Like, I still have podcast episodes, definitely through all of 2024. I've interviewed a lot of people, but I don't know. There's just there's some changes coming and I'm not quite sure what that's going to look like just yet. But I do know that you'll be the first to know.

Carissa Andrews: 1:04:57

And if, for some reason, you're listening to this podcast and you're like no, please don't stop, I would really love it if you would email me and let me know that, because it's really hard as a content creator, as an individual who's doing this, all you know, behind my own microphone, looking at my own screen, to know whether or not this is even making a difference, whether this is even, you know, impacting you in any way, shape or form. And that's really what I want to be doing, right? I want to be impacting you to make better decisions, to change your perspectives, to challenge your perspectives on all sorts of things. So not just indie authorship, but just life in general. And it's hard to know that, you know, just being a solopreneur doing all the things, and at a certain point, when you're doing so much, it's just not sustainable and so you have to make some cuts and make some decisions. And I'm not quite sure yet. I haven't decided, but the Author Revolution podcast could be on the chopping block in the near future. I'm not, but the Author Revolution podcast could be on the chopping block in the near future.

Carissa Andrews: 1:06:01

I'm not, like I said, 100% decided, but I'm just trying to figure out, like, what is my path, what is my purpose, and I know helping people in a much more intimate way is my calling. It's like I don't want to just speak into the void. I don't want to just put out a whole bunch of content hoping that someone somewhere might happen to stumble upon it. Right, I want to see my students one-on-one. I want to be able to you know, laugh when they tell silly jokes. I want to know that. They have, you know, ups and down days. I like to know when their books are launching. I like to know how I can support and down days. I like to know when their books are launching. I like to know how I can support and I think that's part of the reason why I was called to create these memberships rather than having just like all of my courses solo and trying to convince people that this is something that's going to benefit them, when a lot of times I think I'm kind of ahead of the curve.

Carissa Andrews: 1:06:58

I'm out there studying things that are just a little bit further ahead than most people, and so not all of my content will resonate and I get that and that's fine. But the membership part, that's a community and that's something that I need, and I know it's something you need, because we're, all you know, in our own way, shape or form, introverts. We're all trying to do this thing and when we're in mid manifestation of our other careers. It can feel really lonely. It can feel like you're doing all the things spinning all the wheels, got all the plates spinning in the air, juggling all the things, wearing all the hats however you want to describe it and still nothing's working. It can feel like that right, and the more I think about how I differentiate myself because that seemed to be a big thing this year when I was interviewing different people and kind of weeding through my own, like what is it that I need to learn here? Who are my people I've learned that my differentiator is not just, you know, oh, we're indie badasses.

Carissa Andrews: 1:07:59

It's not just, oh, we're here to revolutionize the industry. It's, we're here to revolutionize ourselves. We're here to choose for ourselves the path in which we are going to move forward and how we want our author career to look and feel. And in doing so, sometimes we have to make some hard decisions. And you know, like with Author Revolution podcast, is it going to be a hard decision to keep it or to nix it? Yeah, absolutely. I've been doing this for five years, guys.

Carissa Andrews: 1:08:28

I don't know if I'm ready to pull the trigger, but I do know that let go is a big theme this year and when I asked myself the question of what is it that I need to let go. This one kind of keeps circling back around, and so I don't know. I'm not quite sure how this is going to play out yet, but it's definitely something on the consideration pile. So, at any rate, if you are interested in checking out the new High Vibe membership, I would love for you to check it out. There is an introductory trial period. You can hop in for 10 days for 23 bucks, take a look around, have access to all of the courses, the content, the downloads, the meditations and hypnosis, like all the things, and you can do that by heading over to authorrevolutionorg.

Carissa Andrews: 1:09:18

Forward slash High, high vibe. And, of course, there's a community involved. There are Q&As that are involved, like we'll have live sessions, because that's my pride and joy, that's my thing, that makes me really happy, and I hope that you'll check it out and maybe consider joining. We're here to lift each other up, and I am really ready to take on a new role, or take on a new I don't know if persona is the right word but sort of like a new direction when it comes to author revolution. Now the website itself is going to be revamped very soon.

Carissa Andrews: 1:09:52

I don't know if you know this, if you're following me on any socials. I had like the world's worst cold for the past like week and a half, and I'm still trying to get over it. It's almost gone, but like it's, it's still here just a little bit. I can feel my my energy is just kind of a bit drained yet and I'm hoping I'm hoping to get back to my normal badass self, but right now I'm still just a little bit wonky, and so once all this has cleared up, once I'm back to normal, I'll be revamping the website and getting it to look the way I want the new vibe to look, the way I want the new vibe to feel, and, of course, the biggest thing will be pushing high vibe membership, because I want to include and want to bring people in to a community. Instead, I want to be a part of something much bigger, and I think that's something that I even myself am lacking in a much bigger way, right? So, at any rate, I hope you've had a wonderful August.

Carissa Andrews: 1:10:54

We're now heading into September, like I said, and this month is going to be a game changer. I think it's going to be a shift in energy. It already is a shift in energy, like we've gotten over Mercury retrograde and all the things, and so now we're kind of heading into the fall season spooky season. We're heading into, you know, preptober. Next month. I'll be going to AuthorNation. In November I'll be at Rave as well. So if you're in Vegas and you're checking things out and you want to check out books, I'll be bringing books to Rave at the end of Author Nation's conference.

Carissa Andrews: 1:11:25

So a lot of cool things heading into the last half of this year. But I also know that there's a lot of changes on the horizon and I'm not quite sure what they're going to look like. So, at any rate, thank you for being a listener, thank you for being here and doing all the things. I appreciate you so much. And remember, if you want to grab the show notes, head over to authorrevolutionorg. Forward slash 251. I will have the link to Tina's website to be able to get her $9 content creator course, because that's a really great place to start, along with a few other things that she's talked about In the meantime. I hope you have a great week and go forth and start your author revolution. Thank you.