Kyra Schaefer is the CEO of As You Wish Publishing. She has worked with hundreds of authors to get their message to the world. She is dedicated to helping lift voices from all walks of life. Her passion is to debunk the myth that book publishing is difficult and only available for a lucky chosen few. She has been a Clinical Hypnotherapist for 20 years and brings the experience of working with thousands of clients to the publishing process.
What is As You Wish Publishing all about?
We are a Self-Publishing Services Company dedicated to helping authors share their message with the world. We handle the interior book formatting, book cover design, ISBN, Library of Congress number, upload, and more of book production in an easy 4 step process called EZ Publish. We give our authors 100% royalties and the lowest possible print cost available.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
A friend passed away unexpectedly, and I felt called to create a book with a few of her friends to help us heal from her loss.
She was an avid writer and loved being in compilation books with her friends. I felt a book would be a terrific way to honor her memory. I had no money to publish a book. I learned how to self-publish and then asked all of the authors to pitch in to complete the book. That is how As You Wish was born, but not how it continued to thrive.
We have grown our company to help support hundreds of bestselling authors with thousands of books sold worldwide.
We also donate portions of profits to charities with our compilation books. To date, we have donated thousands of dollars to support pandemic relief, refugee relief, a wildlife refuge, pregnant homeless women, at-risk and sex-trafficked children, women’s self-defense, children’s creativity who are recovering from juvenile detention, and foster care. We are also members of the NAACP.
Your first book is for you. Your second book is for everyone else.
Take your first book as education into writing and publishing. This shouldn’t be a costly lesson. Read the fine print in any self-publishing or traditional publishing contracts. Ask more questions than you feel is appropriate.
The most common mistake I see in new authors is they don’t understand publishing and feel that publishing companies they look into will be honest. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case, especially with vanity presses masquerading as independent publishers.
I want to offer two main pieces of publishing advice.
First, the author should be getting 60% of online book sales paid directly into their account from a reputable company like Kindle Direct Publishing.
Second, print costs should be low cost to the author. A black and white book at around 200 pages shouldn’t cost more than $4.00 to print. I have seen massive cuts that so-called “publishing companies” take and leave the author with $1/book profit. Authors should get between $6-$10 profit per book or more.
Lastly, we were authors first, before we were publishers, and understand how frustrating it is to get that annual $16 royalty check and spend tons of money on print copies, all done through an unreliable 3rd party. We created As You Wish and named it that way because we want people to have what they want and get the royalties they deserve.
What are your plans? How do you plan to grow this company?
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
Only 3! Our company started very bootstrapped.
Burn Out: All the work I did myself, and it was exhausting. I wanted to be everything to everyone, and I found myself getting more and more burned out. My husband Todd had to come into the business to help me strategize to move our company to the next level. Quickly, I learned the power of the word no and allowed myself the space I needed to become more efficient, working smarter, not harder.
Organization: I didn’t have a clear system to collect articles, and I found that technology quickly became my friend. I used forms to collect the author’s information and upgraded them to accept payment through PayPal. I created a step-by-step system when collecting manuscripts and articles that the authors could easily follow. Our systems became more tuned into the growing needs of our authors with each book we published. In the beginning, it was tough to say yes to spending $49/month for the forms program (123forms), but eventually, it paid off massively.
Dynamic Offering: We learned what our authors found valuable in their authorship packages. We had a $4,000 package that, although priced correctly, was overkill for authors. They wanted to use their books for their business, already had marketing ideas, and could edit their books affordably. Based on our market research, we were able to cut our package down to $1444. We could give the author what they need for a professional, well-designed book everyone can be proud of.
How do you go about marketing your business and what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
What must happen for you to consider your business a success? and when do you predict it will happen?
Our business is already a success. Financially, we are comfortable and keep our prices low because we keep our overhead low. We find ways to save our authors money without cutting corners on quality.
As we continue to grow, I would love to help more entrepreneurs expand their brand with authorship.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
- Free To Focus by Michael Hyatt
- Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch
- The Influential Author by Gregory V. Diehl – (Interview Here)
If you only had $100 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I’m assuming I have a computer and an internet connection. If not, that is free at the library. I would tuck the $100 into my shoe and see how far I could get without spending it.
Top 4 things I would do in general.
- Decide what I know a lot about and start creating content, videos, blogs, posts, etc. (PS. blogs can be turned into books in the future for residual income.)
- Create some Social Media Profiles, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
- Create a Thinkific Course (They will take 10% on classes you charge for, but you don’t have to pay a monthly fee until you upgrade)
- Fill the course by offering something irresistible to people needing it; charge anywhere from $10-$1000 depending on what you are offering. I would create polls to find out what people are looking for in relevant Facebook groups. Then reach out to the admin and see if I can promote the course in their group.
- Bonus Step: Become an affiliate, if you use a program you would naturally, highly recommend ask if they have an affiliate (commission) program. You can obtain your special link and as you share it with friends you will get a little kickback of 10-20% in most cases. You can also award affiliates to grow your business and create a referral program. Recently, I did an affiliate program for a writing course, we had 4 referrals which cost me $80 and generated $1,200. I like those numbers especially when you start at zero cost.
You will have to hustle your fanny off! When I started my publishing company, I had no money. I found something people wanted to invest in, that they couldn’t do alone or had no desire to do alone. I made something unattainable attainable, and it has helped hundreds of people feel heard and seen. Get to that place with your offering, and your business will soar.
How can we get in touch with you?
We offer free 15-minute discovery session phone calls. Click the big blue button on our home page that says “Free Discovery Session” on our website at asyouwishpublishing.com or head over and take a look at what we offer with the EZ Publish Package.
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