Lauren: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Publish & Prosper. In this episode, I get to do something that I really love doing and haven't had the opportunity to do for a while, and that is interview an author. Because officially as of…what date did you publish this? 

Matt: Halloween 

Lauren: Officially as of Halloween 2025, my co-host is a published author. 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: How's it feel? 

Matt: The same. No. I don't know how to answer that. Are we already starting? Cause that actually –

Lauren: I mean, you don't have to. 

Matt: That actually feels like a hard question. How does it feel to be a published author? I guess in all honesty, it's pretty cool. I did go and update some of my stuff, social media and LinkedIn, and added author next to podcaster and marketer and all around idiot. It is pretty cool to be able to say that you are a published author, yeah. So I guess in a way it does feel a bit different. Yeah. 

Lauren: Good. I'm glad. 

Matt: What are you laughing at? 

Lauren: I'm sure that'll, I'm sure that'll only keep going. I had not actually read your about the author on the back cover until now. 

Matt: So wait a second. Let me get this straight. You were going to interview an author, me? Who also is your co-host, who also is to a degree your boss. 

Lauren: Fully, yes. 

Matt: You haven't even looked at that book.

Lauren: This is the first time that I've seen it in person. 

Matt: Yeah that’s fair.

Lauren: Since you published it. 

Matt: That’s fair. Okay. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: What were you laughing at 

Lauren: The last sentence of your–would you like me to read it out loud? Ask him his favorite day of the week and he'll tell you Friday, which is his second favorite F word.

Matt: Okay, yeah. 

Lauren: That – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – that was what I was laughing at. 

Matt: I actually liked that so much. I put it on my…I think I added it to my LinkedIn profile. I don't remember. 

Lauren: Love it. Great job with this great job in general. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the books, starting with the actual title of it? 

Matt: It's called Profit On-Demand: The Creator's Guide to Building a Profitable Business with Print-on-Demand. 

Lauren: Obviously we've talked about this over the course of the last few months. You haven't been keeping this a secret. You've been talking about the process – 

Matt: Oh, the book. 

Lauren: Of – 

Matt: Yeah. I'm sorry. 

Lauren: - of publishing a book.

Matt: I thought you meant actually like, print-on-demand. I was like – 

Lauren: No. 

Matt: – well, we've actually been talking about this for like ten years. 

Lauren: Oh my God, have we? 

Matt: I mean, I've been here ten years at Lulu, so I've definitely been talking about it for ten years. We've been talking about it for however long you've been here.  

Lauren: I guess.  

Matt: And on the podcast, what are we, two years in? 

Lauren: Two years, yeah. 

Matt: But yes, the book itself, yes. I was teasing it out over the last probably couple of months. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Something like that. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Partially as a way to just keep myself motivated. 

Lauren: I mean, you did… The first episode that we recorded and published this year, we made a deal that we were both gonna write and publish a book for the end of this year.

Matt: Did we? 

Lauren: One of the two of us kept that promise. 

Matt: Man, I forgot – you could have got away with it. 

Lauren: Well I like to – 

Matt: If it weren't for those pesky kids, I forgot all about that. 

Lauren: I am one of the meddlesome kids 

Matt: You are. Absolutely. 

Lauren: For sure. So we've been talking about this, you've been kind of teasing this out over time, but I thought it would be fun to take an episode to actually kind of like go through the whole process and experience. 

Matt: You thought it would be fun to take an episode and torture me for forty-five-ish

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: – minutes?  

Lauren: Yes, I did. 

Matt: Why not.  

Lauren: I thought we would have a great time, so I think you should – 

Matt: Well we always have a great time. I just – 

Lauren: – tell us–well, that's true. 

Matt: – don't always like it when it's at my expense. 

Lauren: That’s 

Matt: Why not? Let's do it.

Lauren: Well, you gotta get used to this part. 

Matt: Why? 

Lauren: This is, this is some of the hardest part, by all accounts, of publishing a book, you have to get used to talking about it and promoting it and being an extrovert about it. 

Matt: I was with you till you said extrovert.

Lauren: I know. 

Matt: But again, I'll roll with it. 

Lauren: Do you remember watching Justin walk around the –

Matt: Oh yeah.

Lauren: The like, show floor? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: At CEX. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Just like hand, like – I mean, that's a level of extroverted that neither one of us is ever gonna reach. 

Matt: But. 

Lauren: But it was effective. It did work. 

Matt: A hundred percent. And by all our access to data that we have for all of our authors and you know, especially the Tilt Publishing authors, Justin is the highest selling one. I mean. 

Lauren: I believe that 

Matt: And the amount of business he's getting from his book, for his masterclass and consulting work, stuff like that, it shows. Now that's not me. I could never do that. 

Lauren: No, I couldn't imagine. But. 

Matt: But kudos to him because that's, especially if you write a nonfiction book that you're trying to use for a number of different things, like – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – that is what you gotta do. You're right.

Lauren: Yeah. Well, it's okay. We don't have to get there yet. You got time before you start doing that. 

Matt: Ugh. 

Lauren: In the meantime though – 

Matt: Maybe Justin will help me. 

Lauren: Maybe he will. Wasn't he one of your beta readers? 

Matt: He was actually. 

Lauren: All right, well, we're gonna come back to that.

Matt: Oh, okay. 

Lauren: Because I wanna talk more about that. 

Matt: Okay.

Lauren: But why don't you start by telling us about the book?  

[5:00] - Introducing Matt’s New Book

Matt: I'll give you the elevator pitch. 

Lauren: Perfect. 

Matt: I'm gonna have to read it, cause I haven't memorized it. 

Lauren: That's okay. 

Matt: I could wing it, but it's probably not as fun. The short and sweet on my book, the elevator pitch is that, whether you're an artist, a content creator, an aspiring entrepreneur, somebody who just thinks the world needs more raccoon meme merchandise, this book shows you exactly how to build something real in the creator economy and scale beyond what your high school guidance counselor said was ever possible. 

Lauren: I like it. 

Matt: Yeah. So it's about building something real from your content, from your designs, from your ideas. And doing it in a way where you can spin it up and scale it fast and with little to no upfront costs.

Lauren: Sounds like something that you know a lot about. 

Matt: I feel like at this point I do. I mean, I wrote a book on it. Right? 

Lauren: You sure did. 

Matt: It's probably prudent to note that this book covers all types of print-on-demand, not just books. It would be very meta if it only covered books. 

Lauren: Right. Right. 

Matt: I did want to cover all types of print-on-demand products and processes, because I'm fascinated with all print-on-demand, not just books. 

Lauren: Yeah. Which is, I mean, something that you've done, not just professionally, but also personally. You have explored different print-on-demand business models in different ways. 

Matt: I have. 

Lauren: Are you going to be selling raccoon meme merchandise to go with the book?

Matt: No.

Lauren: Why not? 

Matt: Because somebody actually already does that. 

Lauren: Oh. 

Matt: In some of the research I was doing for the book, there is somebody out there who, from what I can tell and, and what I could find, most of what they produce is, is raccoon meme shirts and mugs, and I think they even had a beach towel or two. Like, there really is a market for anybody and everything. 

Lauren: I feel like I can picture exactly what it is and if I'm right about it, good for them. 

Matt: Well, I mean, if you can picture that good for you. Or maybe not. Maybe I should be worried about you. 

Lauren: Eh. I mean, I do spend a lot of time on the internet, so I have seen a lot of memes.

Matt: Can confirm. 

Lauren: Can confirm. It’s okay. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[7:00] - Deciding to Write a Book

Lauren: What made you decide to write a book? 

Matt: I actually started it years ago, for a couple of reasons. But the main one was, you know, as we kept doing what we were doing and I was getting more and more speaking gigs and things. And I felt like A, if I'm gonna be talking about books all the time and using a book to, you know, reposition yourself or gain more authority or credibility, I should have a book. And when thinking about, okay, well what book would I write? To me it was pretty obvious that I should write a book about what I know, what I'm talking about all the time. And that happened to be print-on-demand. So I started it years ago, and then I tabled it because…just because. You get busy and, you know, I don't know. There were times where I would pick it up and I just didn't feel super motivated to, work on it. But the motivation really was because I felt like, and still feel like I just needed more credibility especially in some circles. When we push outside of traditional publishing circles and we're talking about what we do to other verticals. You know, when we go and talk to another audience that's not a publisher or author audience about print-on-demand and who we are, like…I think it helps to be able to have some extra credibility there. And so I just felt compelled to write it for primarily that reason. The secondary reason was, you know, I was doing some other print-on-demand stuff. I do have a couple of other websites and like, side businesses. I'm extremely fascinated by it. And so it was also partly like, you know, internally, I wanna learn more about this stuff. I want to do more with it, so. 

Lauren: That's a really interesting point. Cause we've talked quite a bit about how books are an authority builder. And so, you know, you just said that idea about like you wanted to help more firmly establish your authority in the subject.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But also you wanted the opportunity to learn more about this thing that you were already… 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Kind of immersing yourself in, and I think that's absolutely something that we kind of haven't talked as much about and have overlooked a little bit when it comes to nonfiction book publishing. You are inherently going to become even more of an expert in whatever it is you're talking about.

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Because you have to actually do research and process the thing that you're working on and become articulate about how to explain these things. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And understand it in a different way. 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: So. 

Matt: And that's where I kept getting stuck, by the way, too. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So, I would get to a point with it and then I would go to research something or… There's several case studies in there, they're small ones. But, you know, I would go to start on one of the case studies and I would just feel completely overwhelmed with like, writer's block and just like, ugh, so I would just put it aside again.

But you know, again, it was stuff I wanted to continue learning about print-on-demand and building businesses using print-on-demand. So it was a big part of like, okay, I wanna know how to do this right? I need to know how to do this, and if I'm gonna go do all the work and all the research, I might as well add that in and – and yeah, it was very helpful that way. 

Lauren: So what's your like, I guess, main goal for the book, in that case? Is it, to use it as like, I mean, lead magnet doesn't seem like the right…

Matt: No.  

Lauren: The right thing, but it's not to sell 10,000 copies of it either? 

Matt: No, no, no, no. It really was just because again, I felt this…not a pressure, but a compulsion to have a published book under my belt. As somebody who works in publishing, who is a massive book nerd, loves and respects books. And then again, you know, as I was doing more speaking and getting in front of people and talking more and more about it, I felt like, you know, this would lend that extra level of credibility to the things that I was talking about and make people feel a little more comfortable listening to, to what I had to say and not feel like, oh, this guy's just up here pitching Lulu.  

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That I actually had a pretty solid grasp of the print-on-demand ecosystem in general, but specifically as well in book printing.

Lauren: I think that's, that's something that. I've noticed myself trying to do a lot more lately, and I think several people on the team, including you, have been doing this a lot more lately, is kind of emphasizing the like... We're not just here to shill the company that we work for, but we're also like, personally interested in and invested in this knowledge and expertise and area. This is something that we feel passionate and interested in in general, not just because it's where our paycheck is coming from. 

Matt: Yeah. I mean, I can't speak for everybody at Lulu, but I do know that for most of our team and a lot of other Lulu employees in general and you know, especially a lot of our executive team, and…we are book nerds. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: We do love books and anything to do with books, printing books, creating books. So yeah, I think that, I think that's helpful as well. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

[11:29] - The Writing Process

Lauren: So let's talk through a little bit of the process of getting this book from an idea in your head to a actual literal printed book. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: I already said earlier this year, the first episode that we put out in 2025 was building a writing habit. And in that episode, we talked a lot about how to go about the practice of writing, how to build a regular writing habit. Made this deal that only one of the two of us kept about publishing a book, writing and publishing a book before the end of the year. But in that episode, as we were talking through a lot of the steps in that episode, we were both kind of like…building a writing habit is hard. Getting in the practice of writing every day is hard. This is a – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: This is kind of a process. And now here you are, less than a year later, having written and published a book. So how did you get from that? Like how did you build this writing habit? How did you actually write this book in less than twelve months? 

Matt: Well, to be fair to you, and in general for the sake of this conversation, again, I had started it years ago. When I picked back up on it this year I probably…it's sitting at a hundred and eighty, a hundred eighty eight pages, something like that right now. When I picked back up on it, it probably was about half that, eighty to ninety pages. At the end of the first draft, and I'll, I'll get back to your question. A lot of those original ninety pages essentially got stripped out or… So I worked with a really wonderful editor, her name's Kate, Kate Brown. A lot of her feedback and some of the beta reader feedback really informed what the final manuscript looked like. So back to the writing habit. I came into it. I already had eighty, ninety pages, so I had a good start on it. I had a good idea already where I was going, you know, I had a good table of contents. I've always said that I suck at table of contents and outlines, like the genesis of my roadmap. So I went back to ChatGPT with what I had. And because this was started years ago, there was already a ton of stuff that was new and different and things we've been doing at Lulu that I was doing with some of my other print-on-demand stuff too. And I just dumped all that in there and I was like, gimme a new outline here. Like, what's the starting point if I wanna take what I have now, but I wanna make it more current and really take it to the next level and finish this thing out. And so it spit out an outline that, that I was pretty fond of. I made a few changes to it, and from there it got infinitely easier for me. So I just tried to focus on if I could get one chapter a week done and I didn't always meet that. But or me, I can't set a micro goal, it has to be a macro goal. I just told myself I need one chapter a week, right? Based on the outline I had, I knew that if I could get one chapter a week done, I could get this thing cranked out pretty quickly, get it off to Kate, the editor, and all the other things. I think I came close to sticking to that. I do a lot of travel for work, so there were definitely weeks that I didn't do anything with the book because I was traveling and I just didn't. But nonetheless, I think I came close to sticking to one chapter a week. Now a lot of times that looked like one day that week. I spent three hours writing and rewriting. And then other weeks it was, you know, maybe I spent a half an hour here, half an hour there, an hour there, whatever that might be. But I just tried to get a chapter a week done. 

Lauren: I think that's actually a solution that we'd never considered. Cause one of the things that we talked about in that writing habit episode was like, how do you maintain the momentum of –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – of writing on a regular basis? And we talked about the idea of setting a daily word count goal. Or writing a consistent streak of every day, and you don't wanna break the streak. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Or writing for an hour every day. I don't think we ever considered the, like, one chapter per week goal, or whatever the goal is, like X amount per week. And whether you choose to do that over seven days or over three days, or over one day or whatever. 

Matt: I personally don't do really well with micro goals. 

Lauren: Right.

Matt: And I realized that pretty quickly, like trying to hit a certain amount of words per day or even a certain amount of words per week versus like just saying, let me just have what I consider a, a finished chapter. Of course none of 'em are finished. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: You know, until they, they go through your editor's hands. But yeah, nonetheless for me it was just easier to say, you know what, a chapter's not gonna represent. Eight pages or ten pages or a thousand words or five thousand words. A chapter is whatever the chapter is when I get done with it. If I feel like this chapter accurately represents whatever that chapter's supposed to be about, I'm gonna move on. And I just had to do that. I couldn't give myself more micro goals, like word counts or daily stuff, or, I don't know. It just worked better for me that way. 

Lauren: Well, and it does also then the daily writing goal, or like the word count goals or whatever, does then often land you in the position where you're trashing half of it at the end of it. So like you said earlier –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – where like a lot of the, a lot of the original stuff got cut. Austin Church said the same thing when we were talking about his experience writing Free Money. He said that he a lot of his original outline turned out that it was more than one book in one – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – outline. And he had to trim a lot of the original content out and narrow it down and narrow focus on that. I think that's an experience a lot of people have. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So I think the way you approached it makes a lot of sense. 

Matt: I did have to go back through, I didn't have to, but I did go back, like I said earlier. After my, my editor got ahold of it after Kate got her hands on it, sent it back. It looked like a blood bath and rightly so, by the way.  She is awesome. And I did get some feedback from Justin Moore, he burned through it fast. His wife also is a creator and they had already had some, I won't say failed experiments, but some bad experiences trying to use print-on-demand for another business. And so he had some really good feedback too. And I think ultimately I was originally trying to write it, you know, literally as a reference book, so –

Lauren: Yeah.

Matt: I was just making sure everything felt a little more textbook than conversational. And that was a lot of the feedback I got was like, it's fine if you wanna create something that somebody can just flip through and get to the information they need because they're in the middle of building a Shopify store. But that doesn't mean you can't soften the edges a little bit. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: I did try to go back through and make it a little more conversational, soften it up a little bit more, put a little bit more of myself into it. 

Lauren: Well, that's, that's a decision that a lot of people have to come to terms with when they're writing a book. Whether it's fiction or nonfiction is how much of your, your own voice to put in there. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And you have such a distinct voice, like. 

Matt: I don't think it's meant for print. 

Lauren: Well, I do. I think that it would be really hard to read a book that was written by you that isn't in your voice. 

Matt: Well, I mean, I would argue that a lot of that book is, and a lot of it isn't, but. 

Lauren: Well.  

Matt: Again, I just wanted it to be helpful. Like, I wanted –

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – to be something where, if you were gonna start building an online business for whatever, right? Like Disney churro-themed t-shirts. I wanted you to be able to pick this book up and if you are in the moment struggling with, how do I choose the right print-on-demand provider for the best t-shirt blanks that are also available globally? In case I have a strong audience in…in France, I wanted you to be able to pick this book up and flip right to what you needed and not have to weed through a bunch of like, oh, here's another one of Matt's anecdotes. Or, oh, here's a whole paragraph of Matt just cussing and, and, you know. I did put some of myself in there for sure, but I tried to just limit the amount of unnecessary words and stories and things that didn't lend to the value of it.

Lauren: How many ellipses are in there? 

Matt: I don't know. 'cause Kate cut a lot of 'em. 

Lauren: Good for her. I wanna get into the editing stuff too, but before we get there, I do wanna ask how long the whole process took you. I know you said that you've been…

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – working on it already, so you don't have like a, a complete inception to publication. How many drafts did you go through? 

Matt: Yeah, that's easy to answer. So I came into it with one draft already. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: And I think the draft that went for final formatting, proofreading and formatting, was number six. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Yeah. These are full – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I won't say full rewrites. Each draft had a pretty decent amount of changes. So six.

Lauren: Okay.

Matt: Yeah. Five from this year and then the initial – 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: – draft. Yeah. 

Lauren: Wow. Five in a year. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Look at you. 

[19:29] - The Editing Process 

Lauren: So to transition that into the editing part of it, at what point in those drafts did you start sharing it? Like which–did you send, was it the end of the first draft that you sent it to an editor –

Matt: No. 

Lauren: Or…

Matt: No. I think what got sent to Kate was the third draft, it may have been the second one, and I believe it went to her first. But I started getting a little bit antsy and she had already funneled a little bit of feedback my way. And so I made a few changes that kind of became draft number four. That's what I sent off to Justin and a few other beta readers. And then I started getting feedback from them. And by that point, Kate's full edit came through. All of that kind of informed what became draft number five. And then I went through that, had another beta reader look through it, somebody who's in the print-on-demand print industry, that came back and then draft six was the final one. 

Lauren: I have not been a beta reader. In case anyone who's listening is wondering, 

Matt: Well, you know, selfishly you have other things to be doing and, and as somebody who managed you, I had to make sure that you were on track.

Lauren: Yeah, it’s okay. 

Matt: I need to make sure this podcast got done every week, and…

Lauren: Which sometimes by the skin of my teeth, so. 

Matt: Well, hey. 

Lauren: I'll add it to my TBR. I'll read it eventually. 

Matt: Yeah. I mean, at your own risk. 

Lauren: I'll bring it back with highlights and notes. So, okay. So how did you get from that first draft to the third draft? Like, were you self-editing? Were you using tools? Were you like – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: How did you do that? 

Matt: From first draft to, to second, third, fourth, and fifth draft. Prior to it going to Kate, the first draft, again, I knew stuff already needed to be changed. It was a couple years old at that point. A lot of it was still tried and true and fine, cause it was a lot of basic print-on-demand stuff and stuff that doesn't really change a lot. But then there was stuff that was, it was either time boxed or it was, you know, there were references to Twitter in there or just stuff that just didn't even make sense anymore. So I knew that taking draft one and just trying to finish that was gonna be a waste of effort, cause I was just going to go back through and make all those edits. So technically draft one, I kind of just took that, that's part of what I, I fed into ChatGPT and said here's what I've started. Here's what I know is different. Here's where I'm trying to go. Gimme an outline. And when I got that new outline back, that's when draft one was kind of out the window. I took the stuff I did like from draft one, a lot of the basics that stayed tried and true. And then some of the other stuff I liked, I kind of liked my original intro and so I kind of stuck with most of that. It's anecdotal, it's about me and my first job at a screen printing place, and how traumatic that was. Draft one got scrapped pretty quick. Draft two started with that new outline. Things started moving fast initially, and I was really enjoying it, getting into it. And I got pretty much a full…what I thought was a full manuscript at that point. I was doing a lot of self-editing and so, you know, I thought I was looking pretty good by the time I ended up sending my first draft to Kate. I would say from draft one to two, that took maybe a month and a half? Because I was really, really, you know, excited about finishing this thing and getting it published this year. And then from draft two to draft three, that slowed down a little bit 'cause we had a bunch of travel, London Book Fair in March and a bunch of other stuff. I had Justin's event on the heels of London Book Fair. So there was, there was definitely like, time where I went weeks and weeks –

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – without touching it. So from number two to number three, it took a couple of months at least. But then from there, again, at that point I was getting feedback from Kate. I was getting feedback from beta readers, and so from draft three on to the final draft it started picking up again. 

Lauren: I think that there is always an element of hurry up and wait – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – in the publishing process. And that also applies to the drafting and writing process too. Where it's like, you know, you get this burst of motivation to work on it, or you have the time, or you have the…you just got feedback from somebody and while it's fresh in your head, you wanna go through and make those changes. And then it kind of peters off for a little while – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – and then you pick it back up again. And that's. I think that's a reasonable approach to doing things sometimes. Clearly it worked for you. 

Matt: Yeah, I mean, and again, for me, micro goals don't work great. And motivation comes in all different forms. There were times where I wasn't traveling, but I also just wasn't feeling super motivated. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: I was in that state where I knew there was work to be done, but for whatever reason I just wasn't excited about it. But then something would happen or I would talk to somebody who was struggling with something that was a concept in my book and I would be like, oh my God, I wish I had this done. I could just give them a copy of this book. You know? Instead of just saying, hey, I'm writing about like, you know – motivation would come in different ways or would be triggered in different ways. And, I don't know. I think it all just kind of worked out this year where the combination of making progress, I think, tangible progress that you feel good about really helps you stay locked in. But again, I'm in an environment where this topic is fairly regular. So I would get triggered at times by something somebody was saying or doing or struggling with, and it would be like, oh, I need to finish this. Like I just, I gotta get this done, it's ridiculous. 

Lauren: Is there anything that–I'm sorry, I'm deviating from the questions I told you I was gonna ask.

Matt: It's okay. 

Lauren: But one of the things that I really like about the medium of podcasting is that we can kind of pivot as we're going. You know, we could have a conversation with somebody at a conference and say, oh, you know what? That'd be a really good episode topic. And then next week go record that episode and publish that and add that to our list of topics. 

Matt: Right. 

Lauren: But a book…there is a deadline for like, you can't add new content to this. Like you can't just like, suddenly add a new chapter after talking to one person at a conference one time. Did you find that to be a different creative experience for like, you had to draw the line somewhere and be like, okay, I can't keep adding new ideas or new…

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: – things to this? 

Matt: Yes, you're right. You and I get the benefit of being able to just throw a new podcast topic up whenever we want. Honestly, with this though, I didn't feel that compulsion very often. Once I had a really good outline, like I knew…I felt like that outline really was all encompassing of what I was trying to do with this book. And so I really didn't feel the need very often to want to push those boundaries out more. If anything, I just struggled with keeping the chapters tight and concise. I mean, there were certainly topics already in there where I could go off on lots of tangents. Or like we talked about earlier, I could have put more of my own experiences in there and, and balloon those chapters out. But one of the things I don't like about nonfiction books, and I read a lot of them, is that oftentimes that's what you're getting. You're getting one or two helpful little nuggets of wisdom or whatever learnings that this particular person had, and then you're just getting a lot of fluff. Not that people don't have interesting stories and anecdotes and lessons learned and, you know, sometimes they're good, but most people don't write about them very well. And oftentimes I feel like they're used just to fill pages and I didn't want to do that. So I didn't struggle with wanting to add on more and more chapters or topics or…I felt that I had a really good outline, which again, I think helped me finish it. I did struggle at times with keeping those chapters tight and not adding extra stuff in there. You know, there's a few chapters where I felt like, oh, this is a little light, but I felt like I made the point I wanted to make. So it was a struggle sometimes to not add more. But I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna move on. And if I get feedback from Kate or from one of the beta readers that like, this seems too light, then I will. But otherwise. If the point's made, I'm just gonna move on. 

Lauren: So the differences between your various drafts of it were mostly refining and not necessarily adding whole new sections of content?

Matt: Yes. Very rarely did I add a whole new section of content. There were times where based on feedback from a beta reader, or even Kate, where it was like, I think this is either too much inside baseball and we need to kind of redo this. Or I think you need to build out this concept a little more. In other words, I don't know that the reader is going to fully grasp what you're trying to say. I think you need to spend a few more words on this particular thing for the sake of making sure the value is added. So yeah, it was a lot of refining and then some addition by subtraction, to a degree. 

[27:30] - Writing to a Target Audience

Lauren: I wanna ask about the beta readers. So I'm gonna say that out loud so I can hopefully remember to come back to it. But I wanna set that up by asking about your audience. And that is something that we've talked a little bit about in other episodes. But to the point that you just made about this being a little bit too inside baseball, or whatever. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: This is an introductory level book…or not? This is–who's your target audience for this?

Matt: Yeah, if there was anything I struggled with the most, it was going back and forth. Because this book started as, yes, like, here's an introduction, how to build a business using print-on-demand. Because at the end of the day, it's actually not super complicated. There are a lot of steps. There's a lot of things, but they're not, it's not rocket science. And so that was the initial goal. Just like the title says, right? I wanted any creator – And I really was thinking, you know, young, right? Like, I wanted my kids to be able to take this book because they're all creative, they're all artists. You know, I have a 20-year-old who's a tattoo artist. My twins, they're very creative. They like to make art and do things, and I wanted people of their age to be able to take this book and somewhat grasp it. But I really wanted to make sure that, you know, a lot of the creators that are out there right now that still fall into that range, I would say of like, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, up to like thirty-five, forty-ish, max. But then as I started writing, I would get into it and I was, I was putting more, I think, advanced stuff in there. Getting into things about how to create your LLC and what an S Corp is and taxes. And then later on down the road how you would go about negotiating licensing rights and getting into really deeper concepts around how to scale a business, not just how to build a business, but how to scale it. And so I'd get feedback like, well, you're kind of all over the place here. Like, who are you talking to? Who's your audience? Are you talking to beginner, intermediate, advanced? Like, you gotta reign this back in.

And so ultimately, I think I landed on…somewhere from the beginner to intermediate stage, I did pull out some of the more advanced stuff. I don't know why I went down some of those paths, to be honest with you. I think part of it was, like I said, I was also learning some things in the process and I was already at the point where I did wanna know some of that advanced stuff. I think by proxy, I just felt like it should go in there. I think the biggest thing that Kate also really helped me with was that, it was just a constant reminder, like: remember who your audience is. Slow down. This doesn't belong in there. That’s too…you know what I mean? So I think constantly having to go back and remember my audience, the people I'm talking to, they are beginners, maybe some intermediates. These are creative people, these are entrepreneurs, these are people who wanna build a business with very little startup capital. You know, they don't want a garage full of inventory. They have access to creative resources. They're into the idea of owning something that's theirs and their own audience. And I just had to keep going back to that and remembering that every time I was putting something new in the book. 

Lauren: We kind of did that same thing with the workbook that we did for CEX and then also reused for Momentum. Where the steps of how to publish a book. 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: Some of those sections that get –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – really, really granular.

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: And it was definitely one of those things that as we were going through the process of writing it, that was like… Oh, well, like I mentioned in passing now is a really good time to finalize your metadata, but we haven't explained what metadata is. And then we have to go down a slippery slope of explaining what that is.

Matt: Yeah

Lauren: And none of that was actually like, appropriate for an introductory summary on how to…

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But it does become that slippery slope of how do you explain this without explaining this and how – 

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – do you mention this? 

Matt: That's right. 

Lauren: And you have to figure out where to draw the line. 

Matt: Yeah. One of the examples was in the book I started going down the path of talking about sales nexus. So, you know, collecting sales tax and you know, what it means to hit nexus and things like that. But the way that I was doing it, I was using words like Nexus and, and stuff like that, but I hadn't explained what any of that was or meant yet, and didn't realize that. And that's one of those things where it ended up being, you know what, I'm actually just gonna remove that.

I'll talk about the basics of what you gotta do to make sure the IRS doesn't come beating your door down, you know, on your very first Shopify store, but I'm gonna remove that stuff. That was stuff good for me to learn. And again, it was just an example of too much insider baseball or just not, again, paying attention to who my audience was, losing track of that.

[31:40] - Working with Editors and Beta Readers

Lauren: Yeah. So then to go back to the beta readers then, how did you choose who you were going to ask in terms of like…were you trying to choose people that could intentionally give you certain insight into the book? Whether they were people that were writers and could give you that insight or people that were familiar with print-on-demand or whatever. How did you go about choosing who you asked to be a beta reader? 

Matt: Yeah, on two things. Either they had a background in what I was writing about and I felt like they would understand it and potentially be able to add some good value there. Like say, hey, actually this concept is a little out of date, we use this now, or whatever. Or it was somebody who would've been in my target audience. People like Justin Moore, target audience. And already had a bit of an understanding about print-on-demand. But he and his wife were target audience for me, so I knew I would get good feedback from him. I also knew it was something he would be interested in, so. I wasn't sure how fast he'd get through. Cause at that point it was still a pretty gnarly manuscript. There hadn't been many refinements done yet, and it was still that more textbook style, pretty heavy, and a lot of his feedback was like, put more of yourself in here. So he was in that category of he was demographics for me. But then I had other beta readers who were in the print-on-demand industry, not even books per se, like they work in other areas of print-on-demand or in printing or, so it was a mixture of those two. I didn't have any beta readers for the sake of like, writing stuff.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: You know, style, tone, stuff like that. II relied mostly on Kate for that. 

Lauren: And how'd you find Kate? How–where, where did she come from in the editing process? 

Matt: So I did some of this in conjunction with Tilt Publishing. Cause the resources were there, obviously, and I know that team and they all did an amazing job. Kate was doing editing and proofreading for–mostly proofreading, but some editing–for Tilt Publishing. And so I knew Kate. I also knew her style. I also know that outside of that type of work, I know what kind of stuff she reads. I know what kind of person she is and I, I thought she would be a great fit for my book. Thankfully I was right. But yes, initially it's 'cause she did a lot of work for Tilt Publishing. 

Lauren: So you did do some work with outside sources on this one? Working with people from Tilt Publishing. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: Or working with some other designers or creators. This was not a completely solo endeavor.

Matt: No. No. 

Lauren: Which we have absolutely talked about in the past is not–just because you can do it all by yourself doesn't mean that you should – 

Matt: Agreed. 

Lauren: – necessarily. 

Matt: Yeah, yeah. 

Lauren: So what parts of the publishing process did you outsource? Like, where did you get help or what did you do on your own? 

Matt: I mean, other than writing it, everything else was outsourced.

Lauren: Cool. 

Matt: So, you know, again, I had an editor. She did a fantastic job. I had beta readers that helped me. I used Tilt publishing resources for cover design, interior design, formatting and layout. Yeah, I mean, every other aspect of it… I didn't really get my hands back on it or into it until it was ready to go to the printers for proof copies. In which case, I know the printers, obviously. It's us. It's me. Hi. We're the printers. 

Lauren: Whoa, really? You know, a book printer? 

Matt: I do. I actually went to Massachusetts to pick up the proof copies myself. 

Lauren: Yeah, you did. 

Matt: Well, other than this one, this one was a test copy, but. Yeah, so I outsourced pretty much everything outside of writing it.

[34:56] - Designing the Book Cover

Lauren: What was the process like when it came to the cover design and the, I guess the book design in general? Because that was something we did that episode recently – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – where we talked about what do you do when you get your cover design back and you hate it? You did come–so I guess like a month ago maybe. We were in the office and Matt came up to my desk with a stack of papers. We should have brought those in here. That would've been fun. 

Matt: Oh yeah. 

Lauren: Whole stack of paper and put 'em all down on my desk. And it was like twelve different variants of cover designs. 

Matt: Not, not quite twelve, but it was a bunch. Yeah. 

Lauren: Well it was definitely –  

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: – cause it was like at least three different designs and then multiple color palettes. 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: For each of those designs. 

Matt: There were three different designs. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And there were multiple colorways, color palettes for each of them. You're correct. Yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah. So what was that? Can you talk us –

Matt: Yeah.

Lauren: – through what that was like?

Matt: That was probably actually the easiest and funnest part. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: To be fair. I already had experience working with our designers. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: And I know the process. And then also I took our own advice. So I had a lot of fun going around to bookstores and taking pictures of book covers that I really liked. And then obviously some on my bookshelves at home too. So by the time it was the point where I needed to essentially give them my mood board, you know, for lack of a better term. I had all these pictures of book covers that I really liked and I, you know, I would upload those and I would talk to Ashley and tell her why I liked each one, what I liked about it. And I think that made it really easy–she's a great designer and if you're working with a great designer and you give them a lot of direction up front, chances are your first round of mockups, they're probably gonna be pretty good. And the biggest problem you're gonna have is gonna be choosing between them, which is what I had. It was hard to choose of those three designs, because they were all really good. Ashley and Alex both, Alex also worked on a couple designs too, and I ultimately went with one that Ashley did. The funny thing was the cover that I sent her that I think had the most impact on the design was on a whim. I was in Portland and I was in Powell's Bookstore. 

Lauren: Yep. 

Matt: I was in the coffee shop in the bookstore, waiting on my coffee and just happened to turn around and that's where some of the nonfiction books were, and there was a book there and the cover immediately I was just like, oh my God, that's the coolest cover. So I snapped a picture. And sent it to her right away. Her response basically was like, oh my God, I'm so glad you sent this cause this is almost identical to the one I'm about to send you. 

Lauren: Dope. 

Matt: And I was like, oh, okay. Cool. So the cover process was actually the easiest and most fun, but I think it is because I gave them everything I could to help them understand what I thought I was looking for. And ultimately I got pretty close to what, in my head, I thought I wanted my cover to look like. It doesn't always go that way, obviously, but. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: You know, I, I thought it went pretty smoothly. 

Lauren: I love that anecdote. I think that is actually exactly the right thing to do. Literally just go walk into a bookstore. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And just kind of like meander without purpose. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And see what catches your eye. Don't overthink it, just snap a picture of it. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: And then look at it later and go, what was it about this that caught my eye? What was –

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: When there's this many books, I mean, bookstores these days, books and other things, there's such a, like a stimulation overload. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: That like if something catches your eye enough that you like, it draws you over to it. It's worth paying attention to what that is and what the reason is. And if you can put together five or six different elements of that, maybe you can make a book cover out of that. 

Matt: Yeah, I agree. There was a little back and forth on colors and some other stuff. But you know, again, as long as you've set that up really well on the front end and you're quick with your feedback and you're delivering that feedback in a way that's productive, it goes very fast.

Lauren: I mean, I think you landed on a great one. I think this was the one that I said I liked the best. 

Matt: It was. 

Lauren: Yeah? 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: It's very eye-catching. 

Matt: It was hard. The other one I really liked was one that Alex did, and it was the one where all of those things look like pieces – 

Lauren: Oh yeah, I did like that one –  

Matt: – from a model kit – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: – that you would un–but I was just too worried that, you know, younger people reading the book wouldn't understand. They like, they wouldn't get that connection. Like my age, I built model kits when I was a kid. So I knew what it meant to have this plastic thing. And then all the little pieces are attached by a little pla–and you're snapping 'em off. And that concept, that design concept was really cool and clever, but I just don't… I didn't think that people would quite understand what it was. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: And I didn't want there to be any questions, so. 

Lauren: Which is an important thing to understand too. I think that is something that…it's another version of kill your darlings. 

Matt: Sure. 

Lauren: Which is something that I have a hard, very, very hard time with. So, you know, I'm – 

Matt: It is hard.  

Lauren: No shade or shame to anybody that struggles with that. But like, sometimes you get really hung up on an idea that sounds really great, but you have to remember who is your audience? Just because you love this idea doesn't mean that your audience is going to get it or resonate with it or whatever.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: So that is important to recognize when that's happening. 

Matt: I think that's the one constant through this whole thing, was just continually reminding myself who my audience was. Whether it was through writing or, or even the cover, like the cover's a really personal thing. Like nonfiction, I think the writing is not always as personal as maybe fiction, maybe sometimes more. It just depends on what you're writing. I was more invested. In the cover, honestly. Because I knew it was important to get it right. It was fun, but it is hard sometimes, yeah. 

Lauren: Well, it's even just from a marketing perspective and from your experience with not just book publishing, but just marketing in general. I mean, you know realistically that you're gonna be putting this book cover literally next to your face and your name in, in like–you're gonna be at – 

Matt: I did, yeah. 

Lauren: – at conferences, at sessions, and like showing this to people, and it's going to be… I mean, one of the first things that I thought about when I looked at this was the photo that you've been been using as your headshot for years. Which is a very bold, bright color palette and this book goes with it. It doesn't match it, cause there isn't green in that photo. 

Matt: Well. 

Lauren: But it does like it – 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: It's, it’s not gonna clash next to your headshot. 

Matt: Sure. 

Lauren: And you know, that's an insane thing to think about except for the fact that it's not.

Matt: Yeah. I think given my purpose for this book it is – 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: It is something you should think about. It is an example of those small details that are oftentimes overlooked, but yeah. 

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think you did a good job with it. 

Matt: Thanks. 

[41:03] - The Publishing Experience

Lauren: So what was the hardest part, do you think?

Matt: I think the hardest part was probably going through those last couple of versions. I expected–when that first round came back from Kate, I expected that to be a bloodbath. I really did. So my ego wasn't hurt. I was still a little bit taken aback by just how much… But again, I expected a lot. It just made me feel overwhelmed all over again. Like, oh shit. Okay. And so you're back at it, and it's, it can be…it can be overwhelming. When you're going page by page and you have all these changes, uh, that are being suggested and, um, you know, there are times where it's like, no, actually I meant this to be this way, and that's fine. But you know, a lot of it is you're making these changes because if you have trust in your editor and you have a good editor, then I mean, that's the point. You should take those suggestions and make them, because they're giving you a very objective set of feedback. But it still was hard sometimes, especially when…if I made a change and it kind of, it didn't change the context necessarily of that particular paragraph or chapter, but it may have changed how it flowed. And so I felt the need to then go back and kind of restructure the whole paragraph, or the whole chapter sometimes. So yeah, I think the hardest part was the revising, not even the writing of the initial, getting that cranked out to that first full draft to hand over. I don't even think that was terribly hard, just time consuming. It was – 

Lauren: But like, the really, like the fine tuning? 

Matt: Yes. 

Lauren: That's, yeah, 

Matt: Because it was, it's just constantly going back in and back in and then I'd get another set of feedback from a beta reader that was straggling behind and I was like, oh, actually, that's a great point, shit. I have to go back in and, you know. And then it's like, oh, well now should I send this back to Kate for a whole nother–you know? And every time you send the full manuscript to your editor, that's money. That's, that's a cost. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: So, yeah it, it was the revisions, it was the fine tuning, like you said. From that initial full, complete draft to number six, the one that made it.

Lauren: How'd you know when you were done?

Matt: Uh, gosh. You know, I think I just got to a point where I was like, I feel good with this. I don't feel great with it, I don't know if you ever will, but I feel good about it. Yeah, I think I just got to a point where I felt good about it. I felt like, you know, if I read this book or if I bought this book, I would feel good about that purchase. I would feel like I learned some things, and so I had told myself that when I felt good with it and I was ready, then I was gonna write a dedication for my kids and then that was it. So in my head, I knew that once I wrote the dedication to my kids, I couldn't do anything else. It was done. And so that's what I did, and that's what stopped me from picking at it or messing with it anymore. To this day there are things, even now as we talk about it –  

Lauren: Sure, yeah. 

Matt: – there are things I'm thinking about, like, uh, I probably should have, but whatever. It's done. It's out there in the world, and if I feel like it, I can do a revised edition. Or I can just move on and use it for what it's worth and probably write something else at some other point.

Lauren: Are you gonna write something else at some point? 

Matt: I'm gonna write…probably some dystopian Amish romance, you know? 

Lauren: Sure. Why not? 

Matt: Maybe with a little – 

Lauren: Vampire Amish romance? 

Matt: I was gonna say a little vampire twist. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Maybe some fantastical new world type stuff. Probably a big, huge map in the front and a big, huge character tree in the back.

Lauren: I thought you were gonna say Fantasmic and I was, I was like, okay, now I'm, now I'm paying attention. 

Matt: No. 

Lauren: Hold on. 

Matt: I would like to write another book. It would probably be nonfiction. 

Lauren: Yeah? 

Matt: But I don't know, we’ll see. 

Lauren: Maybe one day I'll crack open that doc that you sent me months ago. 

Matt: Yeah, I guess I could finish that one since I've already written four or five chapters of it.

Lauren: I'll help you, you just kinda gimme like another month or two and then, then we will, we'll revisit that. 

Matt: So that's – 

Lauren: I got some other projects that I gotta –

Matt: – that’s 2026 –

Lauren: – I gotta get. Yeah. –

Matt: – that’s 2026 goal? 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: Okay. 

Lauren: We are getting to that time of year where we gotta start making New York resolutions, so, you know. 

Matt: All right well, we'll see. 

Lauren: When you do–cause I think books are like tattoos where once you get one, it's a slippery slope. 

Matt: It might be. 

Lauren: I think, I think this is gonna be your first, but not your last. So. 

Matt: It might be the new tattoos for me, because I'm officially out of body space. 

Lauren: I mean. Technically you've still got a little bit of face 

Matt: No, no, no, never, never. So maybe this is my new tattoos. 

Lauren: Okay. 

Matt: Is books. 

Lauren: All right. 

Matt: We’ll see. 

Lauren: Well, when you get around to writing your next one, is there anything that you're gonna do differently? Or do you think the process went pretty smoothly? 

Matt: Yes. I think that I would probably…I think I messed up by sending manuscript copies to beta readers somewhat overlapping at the same time that Kate had the first version. I think that wasn't the right thing to do. I would either do it one way or the other. Either send it to the beta readers first, or send it to, I'm sure I would use Kate again, but send it to the editor first. One or the other. I think I messed up by doing that. Cause that really messed me up as I was, taking feedback from some of the beta readers and then I was also dealing with Kate's first round, which was a bloodbath. And I think it just, it, it got very overwhelming and, yeah. So next time I definitely would do those one at a time, in terms of beta readers versus editor. Outside of that, I don't know if there's anything else I would do differently. Not off the top of my head. All things considered, I think it went pretty smooth and pretty easy. It really helps when you do have a good team of designers and editors. Obviously I'm fortunate, I had access to those and you know, quite frankly, anybody can get access to them. It's just a matter of cost and or interviewing and finding the right fits. So again, I had the good fortune to know like, the designers I was working with and the editor. 

Lauren: Right. 

Matt: And, but yeah, I don't think I would change anything else. At least not so far. But we're a couple of weeks into the release, so. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Matt: That answer might change in a couple of months. 

Lauren: Well, it is always a learning experience. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: It's a never, never ending learning experience.

Matt: Yeah. 

Lauren: But no, I think that makes sense and I think that that is such a valid point that there are... I mean, obviously you had inside access to a lot of resources, but all you really did was know where to look? Like technically, there wasn't anything that you had access to that anybody listening to this could not also have access to. These resources are all available – Maybe the specific people that you were working with may not be offering freelance work. Maybe they are, I don't know. The resources to, to help you get this done are readily available to people. It's just a matter of knowing where to look, knowing how to pick the right one for you, and –

Matt: Yeah.  

Lauren: – and the right one for your budget.

Matt: No, that's fair. 

Lauren: And building the right team. 

Matt: Yeah. 

[47:39] - Wrap Up

Lauren: We will definitely drop some resources in the show notes for this episode. The most important one being a link to buy Matt's book. Or to check it out if you want to. This episode does come out on Matt's birthday, so you could give him a nice birthday present of giving his book some engagement or just saying hi in the comments – 

Matt: So. 

Lauren: – whatever you'd prefer.

Matt: As people are listening to this episode at first drop date, it is my birthday? 

Lauren: Yes. 

Matt: Okay. Happy birthday to me. 

Lauren: Happy birthday to future Matt. But yes, the day this episode comes out is your birthday. 

Matt: Got it. Cool. 

Lauren: So, yeah. Leave us a comment, leave us a review. Say happy birthday to Matt. Congratulate him on officially being a published author and the first of the two of us to be a published author. So that's pretty cool. 

Matt: I beat you. 

Lauren: You sure did. 

Matt: That was my true, real goal. 

Lauren: I went to grad school for this and it's been a decade and I–and you still beat me. 

Matt: And there's a reason why you're a professional yapper, though. 

Lauren: Sure is. Sure is. 

Matt: Get sidetracked easy. 

Lauren: Yeah, that's true. 

Matt: I use that to my advantage. 

Lauren: Yeah you just sidetracked–You know how to sidetrack me. But I think this is awesome. I'm really excited for you. I can't wait to read it, and I can't wait to see what comes next. 

Matt: Thanks. 

Lauren: Yeah. So if you wanna check it out, please do. We'll put the link in the show notes if you don't wanna check it out but you wanna ask us questions, you wanna ask Matt questions, you wanna learn more about any of the things we talked about here, you can send us an email podcast@lulu.com. You can reach out to us on Lulu Social on YouTube. And wherever else you listen to your podcasts. 

Matt: Yep. 

Lauren: So thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week with another new episode 

Matt: Later.