My journey began with a failed newsletter promoting books promotions. I was hosting another author and myself on Bookfunnel and wanted to host others, but I was limited to 2 pen-names with a standard membership. I offered managed services at the time but only had one person interested, which was not a viable option. She asked me to keep her mind.

That was then. Now I’m providing managed services to over a dozen clients and couple that with Bookmotion.pro, a website that pools our resources to advertise our lead-magnets and discounted books to Facebook and Bookbub, all for less than the cost of Bookfunnel as a nonprofit service to my paid subscribers.

I’ll share my journey so you can learn the lessons I learned.

My journey began again when I discovered Whop.com which helps create a shell for your business so that it’s units aren’t publicly available and you can charge for use. At began work on a course, thinking I’d host it there.

My intent at Literary Salon is to be open about everything I learn, from both successes and failures, in growing a newsletter and selling books as a self-published author. I realized that building a product was becoming part of my system. I would need to teach how to build and offer a digital product, and I didn’t want to be in a position where the only digital product I’d ever built was the course teaching you how to build one. I needed another product.

Based on something a friend had said weeks before, I looked into the possibility of building a promotion site based on PayHip and SendFox. PayHip doesn’t charge up front, and SendFox allows you to collect up to three mailing lists for free. I paid a one-time fee of $49 to expand that indefinitely.

The product I put together looked promising, and I went to the community at Literary Salon looking for beta testers.

People didn’t come running.

We had a couple of people sign up, and then a few more. It was slow getting anyone to submit a reader-magnet though.

Once I finally had a few books up, and everything seemed in working order, I offered up the first round paid membership. I received just enough interest to be in trouble. People had paid money, but I didn’t have the resources yet to pay for advertising. I fell into panic and dread as I researched options to make this work on a small scale while I waited for more people to join.

And then I remembered that old idea about managed Bookfunnel accounts.

I returned to my original client, and she was still interested. Another author, stirred by the progress with Bookmotion, signed on as a Bookfunnel client. I was able to offer promotions as a stop-gap solution while working to build Bookmotion. In the meantime, I put all other interested parties on a waiting list.

Then I realized, at PayHip, some authors’ books were no longer connected to their mailing list. I quickly realized that PayHip would only connect to the most recent ten, and after that, mailing lists just dropped away.

Uncool PayHip. Uncool.

This was another moment of panic. I solved the issue by building a front-site using Google sites and connecting that to multiple PayHip sites and multiple SendFox accounts. It was an ugly, cumbersome solution. I needed something better.

Now, when I say ugly, I don’t mean Google sites. That surprised me. I had discounted it a first, refusing to give it consideration, but it proved to be exactly what I needed.

I put together a mini-course teaching people to how to connect SendFox to their own PayHip stores. I thought maybe that was the solution to this ungainly collection of accounts. If that’s something you need, the course is free, and you can cherry pick what lessons you are relevant.

The next thing to happen was a butterfly flapped its wings. I tell you, if I’ve ever experienced the butterfly effect, this was that moment.

In the chat, a client reached out, saying that they’d entered the waiting list in time to take advantage of an early-access promotion but had never been given that early access.

That thread in the chat changed everything, and how do you predict such a thing? How do you replicate it? You can’t. It’s a random spark that sets the world ablaze — but in a good way.

I apologized, but I was hesitant to give the link now because I was out of room on Bookfunnel, my stop-gap solution. I didn’t want to bring him on only for nothing to happen.

At that same time, I was delivering another batch of subscribers, a much bigger batch than before. People were getting excited.

The next morning, I dropped the news. If you weren’t paying for Bookfunnel Managed services, you were in danger of being rotated out. Let me know if you wanted to secure your spot, I said. Two things happened because of that announcement. One, people who had a taste of growth didn’t want it taken away from and quickly announce they wanted to sign up. Two, an angel reached out with the offer of a no-strings-attached donation to help the startup get off the ground.

That surge of customers and investment gave the effort the funds it needed to begin advertising, but the system still needed a simpler solution. I found it, once more, with Google. Now the Google site leads you to a Google form when you select a book. The form sends the collected email to a Google sheet which I share with the author. The form’s thank you page provides a link to my PayHip store (just one store) where the book is only visible to those who have the link.

They download the book, and everyone is happy.

The next step is to expand into discount books and storefronts for my authors. I hope we’ll see you there: Bookmotion.pro.

— Thaddeus Thomas

The worst part is I was being all judgmental when my wife saw the clothes my mom sent her for her birthday. They were things Mom would wear, not her, but I believed she should just be grateful for the thought. Now, all that judgment just boomeranged right back at me.

It’s my own fault. I encouraged Mom to read The Age Of Innocence along with me. Naturally, she was going to assume she could just announce that she’d bought us both copies of a book to read.

Anyone can see what books I’ve read this year; I’ve been keep a running tab (at Reading Groups+ at thaddeusthomas.com and at hardcover.app). Mom knows this.

I write literary fantasy and I read… well, so far this year…

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Dubliners by James Joyce

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

The Son by Philip Meyer

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Silence by Don Delilo

As well as selected short stories by Virginia Woolf, Daphne Du Maurier, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert W. Chambers.

Apparently, I’m now going to read a horse-ranch Romance.

See, now, that’s the other thing. I’ve been learning to understand Romance and not react under society’s old misogynistic tendencies. With that intent, last year, I listened to a few Romantasies — fantasy-based Romance stories. I really liked A Dowry of Blood. A friend at work heard this and offered me books by her favorite author, Colleen Hoover. I accepted and intend to read at least one.

But this? Without being consulted?

I’m a David Lynch fan. I wasn’t crazy about Wild at Heart when I first saw it, but I’ve been thinking about giving it another go. That would have been a thoughtful gift.