Navigating the Transition: Career Changes in Writing | JV Hillard

PROFITABLE TALKS

In this episode of The Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim interviews author Joe J.V. Hilliard, who shares his journey from being a defense lobbyist to becoming a successful fantasy novelist. Hilliard discusses the challenges of transitioning careers, the importance of passion in writing, and the intricacies of navigating the publishing industry. He emphasizes the need for authors to understand the business side of writing and the value of building a brand in a competitive market. In this conversation, JV Hilliard shares his journey as an author and entrepreneur, discussing the importance of professional voice talent, navigating the publishing landscape, and the critical role of marketing and book covers. He emphasizes the challenges of turning passion into a business and the commitment required for success in entrepreneurship. Hilliard also reflects on the supportive community within the writing industry and the lessons learned from his experiences.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS

• Hilliard transitioned from a defense lobbyist to a novelist during COVID.
• His entrepreneurial journey shifted from consulting to writing.
• Burnout in lobbying was a significant factor in his career change.
• Writing has always been a passion for Hilliard since childhood.
• He emphasizes the importance of understanding the business side of writing.
• Hilliard's novels blend epic and dark fantasy elements.
• He believes in the necessity of building a brand as an author.
• The publishing landscape has changed with self-publishing options.
• Hilliard invests time and effort into marketing his books.
• He aims to create engaging stories that resonate with readers. Investing in professional talent can enhance your book's appeal.
• Learning the publishing industry is crucial for new authors.
• Book covers significantly impact sales and reader interest.
• Marketing is often more important than the quality of the product.
• Building a community and networking is essential for authors.
• A newsletter is more valuable than a website for capturing readers.
• Rapid release cycles can help maintain reader interest.
• Passion projects may not always translate into viable businesses.
• Commitment and focus are key to entrepreneurial success.
• Understanding the industry is vital for long-term success.

Ready to turn your PASSION into PROFIT?!? Let's get CREATIVE ➡️
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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.27)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will find out how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Oak Park, Illinois. I think that's a suburb of Chicago, but not sure. And I don't know that I've been there, but maybe. In any case, thank you for listening. Joining me today.

is the infamous Joe J.V. Hilliard. Joe, welcome to the program.

JV Hilliard (00:33.741)
Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate the opportunity to come on the show.

Christian Brim (00:36.81)
Absolutely. So one of the things we talk a lot about on this show is the entrepreneurial journey. So why you start out by giving us a synopsis of what got you here?

JV Hilliard (00:51.048)
Yeah. So it was a bit of a change in direction from a career perspective. You know, up until COVID, I was a defense lobbyist and I had my own company doing work for a lot of technology companies that needed access to the Pentagon, White House, the legislature for a variety of reasons. And when COVID happened, everything kind of took a turn and DC was for all intents and purposes shut down.

Christian Brim (01:00.546)
Okay.

Christian Brim (01:18.466)
Yes.

JV Hilliard (01:18.644)
for a number of years. And in my business, it's a very touchy-feely kind of business where you meet people and you talk to them and you try to influence the outcome of certain things. So for me, my business was consulting. It was working with legislators and working with department and agency heads to influence the outcome of a contract or a grant or a discovering that there may be a fit for some of these new technologies that the Defense Department didn't know about. But when COVID happened,

DC basically shut down. Everything went to variations of this, you know, whether it was Riverside or, or zoom or whatever it is. So less travel was involved, but there was a portion there for almost a year, where there was, wasn't anything to do. So I took a life passion of mine, which is the nerd side of me and turned it into a, what I thought was going to be a standalone novel, you know, kicking off the bucket list, that book that I'm always supposed to write. but you know, when I got out into the marketplace,

Christian Brim (01:50.317)
Yes.

Christian Brim (02:10.477)
Yeah?

JV Hilliard (02:15.216)
a friend of mine who's a professor read it and she said, you know, this is really publishable. And you should really kind of take a look at, you know, doing something with it. And when I finally met the publisher that I decided to team with, she said, Hey, you know what, sorry to tell you, but fantasy adventure novels don't come in one offs you I want a series

You know, your readership is going to demand a series. So you got to promise me at least three books, which has now turned into four, which is slowly starting to turn into 10 over the next couple of years. And so my entrepreneurial journey went from what I thought was a very strict, realistic, you know, every day zero sum game job as a defense lobbyist. Now, all of a sudden, it's flipped to the other side, where it's a little laid back. I do my workout of coffee shops are in my den. I don't

touch base with anybody unless I need to talk to my publisher or my editors. but the the the the principles still apply, right? So whether it's me needing to get revenue from clients to serve them in DC, or it's me finding ways to sell my product, so can get revenue to feed my family. It's the same kind of business, you know, you know, principles apply to this, it's just a different kind of game.

Christian Brim (03:07.437)
Right?

Christian Brim (03:25.709)
Yes.

Christian Brim (03:31.822)
Well, I can tell already from your answer that this is going to be a good interview because I've got lots of questions. Okay. So were you, were you a, uh, independent lobbyist or were you working with someone else?

JV Hilliard (03:36.916)
Okay.

JV Hilliard (03:42.996)
Yeah, I spent first six and a half years of my career working for the senator on the Armed Services Committee. And after that, I started my own company. So I always own my own entity. And then I originally ran that that first company up to about 30 people. We were in five states plus DC. And I sold that to an international law firm. And then once I got to the law firm realized there's very little room if any for entrepreneurial endeavors. So after about three years, I

Christian Brim (03:48.77)
Okay.

Christian Brim (04:09.367)
No.

JV Hilliard (04:12.148)
you know, and certain restrictions were over, I stepped back out and restarted my, my, my company under the same guidelines that I had the first trying to kind of get back to what I was doing prior to. So I've always been entrepreneurial, even the idea of going onto the Hill and doing work there. It's not a 24. It's not one of these like nine to five, you punch the clock and you're done. Like you're there until you need to not be there. And sometimes that means you're there, you know, 5am to

Christian Brim (04:33.495)
Right.

JV Hilliard (04:39.656)
you know, 11 o'clock at night or know, overnights for votes and things like that. So, you know, it's just a different kind of world. It's not for everybody, but I really enjoyed it. And then was able to translate that sitting on the other side of the table and representing clients back to those same legislators, those same committees, those same departments and agencies.

Christian Brim (04:57.944)
So was there any burnout factor at all in not going back into that gig?

JV Hilliard (05:04.724)
yeah. Yeah. So there was several points of pain, right? The first was it's a zero sum game. You are fighting for the same thing everybody else is fighting for. No one's your friend. You sometimes have frenemies. But for the most part, you know, it's just, it's as bad as it sounds like it's going to be. It's a it's a very you have to have a very thick skin to work in the in the business and not just on the sales side where you're competing against others to represent clients, but then working with a bunch of alphas.

you know, on the hill, mean, no one there is going to they they're just they're already numb to any kind of influence. It's just a matter of representing that you can do something well for your client and that they trust you. So that that was part one. Part two was the you know, as you get older and have a family and you have a house and all this and I don't live in DC, I live in Pittsburgh, travel gets to you time away from your family gets to you.

Christian Brim (05:34.499)
Yes.

Christian Brim (06:02.862)
Yeah.

JV Hilliard (06:03.348)
and all those kind of things. so even though DC for the most part is a Monday through Wednesday thing, you know, when they're in session, and they typically go out of session have district work periods, you know, over the weekend where they go home to, it's not always that case. And when they're in doing budget cycles or things like that, there's just an ebb and flow to it that creates that that burnout effect. And so for me, those are the two things that encouraged me not to go back. But the thing that wants me to go back is the money.

Christian Brim (06:24.727)
Mm-hmm.

JV Hilliard (06:32.882)
you know, there's no compare I can make in one month, what I'll make in the four, the three and half years I've been doing my stuff, it's just, there's no comparing it right unless you're Stephen King, or someone that's been around forever. There's just you just can't make, you know, the money is almost a side hustle. You know what I mean? It's it's it's really not. So I end up doing some, you know, invisible ancillary work for other folks on the side to make money to pay the bills while I'm building this brand.

Christian Brim (06:40.61)
Right.

JV Hilliard (07:02.142)
that I've got in my new company, which is so happens to be an art form as opposed to, you know, the art and science of lobbying.

Christian Brim (07:10.286)
So, okay, so you sounded like you were writing the book not intending for it to be a business, just to scratch that itch. I wanna start with, like, why was that an itch? Like, what spurred that passion?

JV Hilliard (07:29.928)
Yeah, well, it goes back to me being a nerd at heart, right? You know, I've never, you know, the DC thing came natural, and I enjoyed it. And I could do it. And it's not for everybody. But so did writing, right? And I've always wanted to be a writer. And I started out young, falling in love with the genre. And then when I was growing up, my uncle was a Marine and he was paralyzed in war.

And when he came home, he was like a second father to me. My mother was his nurse and I grew up by his side and he had very limited things that he could do. And you know, some of them were writing, you know, they fashioned the utensil for him to be able to click on a keyboard and he was able to write and so he published primarily like short stories and horror novels and things you would find in pulp fiction and magazines and stuff like that. But when you're growing up by his bedside, I wanted to be him. He was like my dad, right? So of course, I was emulating him. And I was always good at communicating. I was always good at writing.

Christian Brim (08:17.838)
Yeah.

JV Hilliard (08:24.244)
Um, you know, and I won, he snuck me into a eighth grade writing contest when I was in fourth grade and I won it. And then when I showed up to get the award, everybody's like, what happened? What's going on here? Uh, right. But I, you know, it was, I've always had a passion for it and I've always had a, you know, a talent for it. So I grew up wanting to write it, but you know, writing is a hard thing, like to, be successful in any art form. Takes a lot of luck and a lot of planning.

Christian Brim (08:34.092)
You cheated!

JV Hilliard (08:51.762)
you know, and you have to work at it and you have to go everywhere and you have to be everywhere. And what I find and what I see in this space was there's a there's there's value in knowing what I know about running a business that I see most authors fail at doing because they look at it differently. Like sometimes they write something and they're like, well, I don't care if anybody reads it. It's just my art. Right? Well, you can't make money that way. Like you have to care that people read it or at least that they buy it.

Christian Brim (09:05.549)
Hmm.

Yeah.

JV Hilliard (09:19.856)
But ultimately, they're grading your product, right? They're going to leave Amazon review, they're going to leave a different kind of review. And so for me, it was finding out that I can make money at it. Finding the right publisher to walk alongside me so that I understood the marketplace a little bit better. And then putting together what I think is a product that people will want to buy and will want to continue to buy so that can build on that. I mean, there's no business that starts out day one that's profitable, right? So you have to invest either time or

Christian Brim (09:45.73)
No.

JV Hilliard (09:47.63)
treasure to get it there. And in this case, you know, it's an investment of both your you know, I've got to some time in. I go to a lot of comic cons, I got a lot of book signings, I travel around and do things that I might sell very few books at. But I've seen over the last couple of years, there's a momentum that's there. And people want to, you know, follow and if they like what you're writing, they're going to come back for more and they can't read book four without buying book one. And so once I started to build up that portfolio,

Christian Brim (10:04.206)
Mm-hmm.

JV Hilliard (10:15.356)
Now all of a sudden that's where I can make a profit and I can rival what I was doing prior to.

Christian Brim (10:21.066)
And the genre you write in is...

JV Hilliard (10:24.894)
Primarily epic fantasy meets dark fantasy. So for those that may not know what that is epic fantasy is like Tolkien It's it's a lot of Lord of the Rings. It's very though. The world is on me a poised on the brink of chaos and heroes have to come along to save it you know versus Conan the Barbarian, which is more sword and sorcery or classical fantasy like Dungeons and Dragons where you're just going out and you know fighting things and gathering treasure

And then the other side of what I do is the dark fantasy side, which I would liken closer to Game of Thrones, which the good guys don't always win. So I've put a spin in my novels that is uncommon in epic fantasy where you're used to the good guys winning here. Not all the good guys make it through. And I also like putting a bit of a gothic spin into it. It makes it a little different than what you would see. It's not just the dragons.

Christian Brim (11:03.469)
Right.

JV Hilliard (11:20.516)
and the wizards now all of a sudden you're fighting something that might be likened to a vampire or something undead or monsters you haven't seen yet. And I bring that in to scare people. want them to read it, be scared, and then I want the heroes to win eventually, and then they're happy that the heroes beat the big bad evil guy.

Christian Brim (11:31.63)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (11:39.83)
Yeah, I'm thinking, and this goes, you mentioned Dungeons and Dragons. goes back to a module, DND module that I bought in like fourth grade. that would have been.

80 something like that. don't know. and the module was, you know, set your traditional Dungeons and Dragons sword and sorcery, but they come across this crashed spacecraft and I don't remember the name of the module. I've never been able to find it. and, I read a book recently. I can't tell you the name of it. I can tell you that it was, it was a trilogy.

And I can't tell you the author, but it was similar, you know, it was like a society had collapsed, but in a lot of the, not alien, but the advanced technology was like buried and built over. And there were elements of it that still survived, but it was basically a medieval society. Like they didn't have running water and things like that.

And that just that tweet just, I don't know the sci-fi sci-fi fantasy crossover. don't know what you'd call that. That's always intrigued me.

JV Hilliard (13:01.48)
Yeah, that that happens more than you think. And I think that the module that you're referring to is Expedition to Barrier Peaks. Yeah, and there were a few others that came off of that too, which and what Dungeons and Dragons at the time owned by TSR was trying to do was merge the two games they had. had a they had a sci fi game called Star Frontiers, and they had Dungeons and Dragons and they wanted players of one to start playing the other. And so it was an attempt to kind of merge them together and show people that you might like this.

Christian Brim (13:08.654)
Eh, that sounds right.

Christian Brim (13:25.966)
Okay.

JV Hilliard (13:31.284)
you know, laser gun battle that I've got to and why don't you buy Star Frontiers as well if you're a fan of D &D. But you'll find a lot of like dystopian fantasy that follows along that same realm where it's a lost technology that they mistake as magic, but it's really something that's come from a futuristic society and it's called science fantasy. You know what I mean? So like they actually, you know, they merge the two together. You get that a lot with romantasy where it's a...

Christian Brim (13:46.349)
Right.

Christian Brim (13:52.408)
Okay.

Okay.

JV Hilliard (13:59.422)
fantasy romance like Outlander, all the ladies like that, because there's a hot guy in it that's wears a kilt or whatever. And she time travels back to see him and things like that, too. But those are really kind of sub genres of the greater genre that you're referring to. So yes, it's it's more common than you think. And usually, if you have an open mind, and you like the fantasy adventure stuff, you're also likely a fan of science fiction, right? It's like me, I love Star Wars, I love Star Trek, but I grew up on Harry Potter and

Christian Brim (14:24.022)
Yeah, no, yes.

JV Hilliard (14:29.054)
D &D. you know, for me, it's like you're open minded for both.

Christian Brim (14:33.576)
I have been on a Timothy Zahn kick for, have you read any of his stuff? Yeah, for about a year and I had no idea he'd written so much, but I really liked his Star Wars with Admiral Thrawn. Like that whole was really, really good. And then when Disney came out with Thrawn and what?

JV Hilliard (14:39.827)
Yes.

JV Hilliard (14:52.82)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (15:02.4)
show was it that Admiral Throne showed up and yes, yes. Yeah, I was like, yeah, this character is awesome. And as you read the books, kind of to your point, you know, in Ashoka, he's a bad guy, right? But when you read the books and hear his origin story and everything, you're like, I don't know that he's really that bad. you know, he's certainly not nice, but he's not

JV Hilliard (15:05.32)
It was the Ashoka, the spin art.

Christian Brim (15:31.859)
evil. Yeah, it's

JV Hilliard (15:34.932)
Well, that's when you know someone like Zahn is doing it right, you know, because it's really hard to develop a villain that is born evil, you know, unless it's like exorcist and it's a devil that's right. In this case, I always like to show the side of the villain in the same way you saw Anakin Skywalker. I mean, prior to Darth Vader, he was a good guy, then he became a bad guy and he saw a path to redemption and he took it to save everybody and he was kind of the chosen one when it all really kind of came down to it.

Christian Brim (15:45.186)
Right, right.

JV Hilliard (16:04.328)
You know, so there's, you know, there's that too. And so, you know, a thron or a Vader or somebody like that, you want to know what they're, you want to be intrigued by that. You want to know what their backstory is because you want to know, yeah, how did you get here? It's exactly right. It's like, would I have made a similar choice? And even at this heart, getting back to what you said earlier, you know, Star Trek is basically science fantasy or Star Wars is basically science fantasy. Or you've got these guys with laser swords that are practicing a lost art of sword fighting.

Christian Brim (16:15.478)
Like, how'd you get here?

Christian Brim (16:21.346)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (16:33.485)
Yes.

JV Hilliard (16:34.056)
that use the force that you can't touch. It's a magic, but it's not really a matter of where it comes from. And it has it pulls everything together. You know, and meanwhile, you're on, you know, a star destroyer, right? And you're taking those two principles, which is this real ancient, mysterious magic that people can't get their hands around called the force. And there's only a few users of it that understand it well enough to use it. And they happen to control these star destroyers and the things that can blow up planets and stuff.

that too. So it's it's it's it's there. It's prevalent. And I think Timothy Zahn does a really good job in his novels. I know that you know, another crossover was a guy named R.A. Salvatore, who wrote a couple of Star Wars novels as well, who was really primarily right out of the Dungeons and Dragons scene from Forgotten Realms and his Dark Elf trilogies and things like that, too. It's a it's popular. And I'm glad you like them because you know, it's it, you know,

Christian Brim (17:04.312)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (17:16.75)
it is.

JV Hilliard (17:30.6)
That's where it gets fun where you're intersecting those things. You're doing stuff that people might not expect. And that's what I think makes it different and then intrigues people and they buy more and more.

Christian Brim (17:39.628)
Yeah. And I realize we're not talking anything business related, but that's okay. I also like one of my favorites growing up was Stormbringer and the whole Elric with that anti-hero kind of. Yeah. Okay. So let's move on to something.

JV Hilliard (17:59.303)
Elric. Yeah.

Christian Brim (18:09.486)
More, I don't know, concrete. So the business model, you said, is different than the business model of the business that you had. How hard was it for you to learn and adapt to the new business model?

JV Hilliard (18:31.22)
on a scale of one to 10, maybe six, you know, and I say that because much of the principles that are fundamentally buried in owning a business still exist, right? What's the value proposition? What am I bringing to you, whether it's a service I was providing before, or now it's a product that you're going to buy? And how do I build that product's brand? And how do I build my name and find my space in a sea of, of plenty of other authors that are out there, right? So

Christian Brim (18:42.946)
Yes.

JV Hilliard (18:59.518)
It's a little different than what I was doing before. was such a specialist that people would seek me out. and it was easier to find some work because there were only a handful of people that knew how to do what I did. this is different. You can run into all sorts of authors all over the place. Very successful ones, ones that are just starting out. And there's a sea of it that Amazon has kind of spilled out over, you know, where before you had to get published to see your book on a shelf. Now you can publish your own stuff.

Christian Brim (19:04.704)
Right.

Christian Brim (19:11.778)
Right.

JV Hilliard (19:29.33)
right. So it's a little bit different. And for me, I had to learn the basics of the industry, which was hard for me to understand. It's a diff. It's far different than what I was doing, right. So first of all, it's fiction versus nonfiction. You know, that's at the basis of it. But secondly, there are ways that you know, you learn that in order for you to make money, you've got to that's that initial investment that you put in, right? It's like I've got to write a very good book.

that people want to buy, and they're going to want to follow up. So I have to continue to write those books, and they still have to be good. And then I've got to make them available. So where do I find them? Like, how do I sell them? So I have them done in a book format, I have them done in ebook format, so that they're available ubiquitously to folks as part of that, too. Because, you know, hey, what if I just like listening to books on my way to the office or on the bus or on the train to work, I might miss that person or those people because I don't have an audio book. So that was important for me to

Christian Brim (20:19.479)
Right.

Christian Brim (20:26.658)
Did you did you narrate your own?

JV Hilliard (20:29.008)
No, I see I deferred to specialists that do that because I wanted it to be done professionally. So even though I looked at that as an investment in my business, right. I went out and got a guy whose voice is very familiar to the fantasy sci fi world that people would recognize that would have some gravity to it so that when the books did launch, people might buy it just to hear his voice. Right. And, you know, so Victor Baveen, who is my voice actor,

Christian Brim (20:35.597)
Yes.

JV Hilliard (20:55.656)
has done a lot of stuff in the sci fi fantasy realm. And so he's been a big help for me, you know, and that's why I saw traditional publishing. Because again, if you don't know the horse, you don't make the bet. And I didn't know this marketplace. And so for me to do it as an independent author, which at the heart of what I do, I'm an entrepreneur, you would think that that would be the way I would choose to go instead, I chose to learn the game before jumping in on my own. And the fact that I did that with a publishing house that

understands me understands my genre knows what my readership is going to like. I over the last four years, I've been able to learn that through osmosis and sort of like the Mr. Miyagi Danielson thing like watching her do what she does, learning that on my side so that as I grow, you know, I might be able to go to a mid market or a larger publishing house, which she's in agreement with, like she doesn't mind that at all. You know, because she she helps authors that were like me four years ago, right. And that's where she focuses. So I learned the trade.

by watching her, by working with Victor, by working with other editors that understood it a little bit better. And I think that helped me understand the marketplace. And now I'm not as, you know, I'm not as nervous about going into it on my own and doing some other things too. But that's why I would grade it as a six. It wasn't a 10. And part of that is also because this community is super supportive. I unlike my old job, where you were my enemy,

Christian Brim (22:17.656)
Right.

JV Hilliard (22:25.46)
This is something I want to tell you how to help you. I want to you succeed. This is a feel goody thing. You're going to have me on your show. I'm going to have you on my show. I'm going to see you at the convention. We're going to give a speech together. We're to work together. It was very collaborative. And so I think that made it more inviting and really kind of I convinced myself to go in that direction because of that. But ultimately, I think six out of 10, just learning because it was a brand new industry for me, something I never thought I'd step foot into.

And now that I'm there, I think I got it. I'm not there yet, but ask me in two years. If we fast forward it, I think we're going to get this down.

Christian Brim (23:02.862)
Yeah, I it's I published my book last year and of course it's not fiction. So completely different and it was a completely different purpose. Like I didn't have a goal of selling a hundred thousand books. That was not my goal. But in talking to the I self published, but when I was, I hired a publisher to help me with the editorial process and the layout and all that other stuff. And you know, it became evident very early on that

it writing the book was really, I don't want to say half the battle. It was maybe 30 % of the battle. Like it's, it's the marketing of the book. that, that makes the difference because frankly, you can have a shit product if you market well, and this is not just books. This is anything right. you know, you, you can sell it.

JV Hilliard (23:56.89)
Anything.

Christian Brim (24:01.6)
And you can have a great product if you don't market it well, no one will buy it. So what are some of the unique things or maybe not unique in the whole industry, but what stands out to you that has, excuse me, worked in the marketing and promotion of your book?

JV Hilliard (24:21.276)
The first thing I would say is the covers of the books. What I learned at a very young age was that when I was my first one of my first jobs in high school was working at a bookstore. I did it because I was getting free or very cheap books at the time. But the books that people bought were the books that had good covers. And my publisher and my editors and others that I worked with really underscored that for me. And they said, look,

Christian Brim (24:23.661)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (24:32.653)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (24:38.335)
Excuse me.

JV Hilliard (24:47.718)
it doesn't eat what's on the cover doesn't even need to be in the book. But unless you see a book on a shelf, and that doesn't appeal to you, you're you're not going to grab it. It doesn't matter what's in it. could be the best book ever. But if it's a boring cover, they're not going to grab it. So I got striking covers done by illustrators that understood my genre. I paid a little bit more for it, but it worked out and some of them won awards. And the idea is, you see me on the show. Then the first what's the first thing you do you grab it, you look at the cover, you're like, that's really cool.

And then you flip it over and you read the blurb on the back, right? And that 250 words has got to grab you. It's got to reach out to grab because if it doesn't, you know, and I'm horrible at that. I write 150,000 word novels, right? Asking me to write a 250 word blurb, I freeze up, I stink at it. So I got someone to help me write my blurb, you know, so that it was popping and people would say, I like it. And you find out that there are like word clouds out there that are that are, you know, connected to your genre.

that you want to use those words. So for me, was words like adventure, harrowing, chaos, know, things like that, where you would put them in the blurb, make sure that they popped. Because if you read that, you'd like, okay, and so now once you got past the cover, and then you read the blurb, you might open it up and start to read it. If you like that first chapter, and it punches you in the face, you're going to continue reading it. So those are the three steps I learned right away. And that's how I started to market it. Secondly, when you're a novice author, you need to find ways to get yourself

out in the community so people notice you. And so I use social media, because social media was free, save for the time cost of money that you put into it, which is your time. But the more that you were on it, you would improve your search engine optimization, you would make friends on there, you would swap books, they would you would they would follow you, you would follow them. People would give you reviews on there, you would I found beta readers on there. And it was being active in those communities.

that drove additional sales and eyes to my site. The third thing was having a newsletter, not a website. In all honesty, the only purpose of my website is to get your email. Like if you buy a book on my website, great. Outside of that, I don't care. I want your email because you visited my site and if you bought it on Amazon, I don't know how to get ahold of you. So I know if you came to my site and you leave me your email,

Christian Brim (26:47.66)
No. Okay.

Christian Brim (26:55.05)
right. Okay.

JV Hilliard (27:08.124)
I can grab that and then the next book and the next book I can throw at you.

Christian Brim (27:11.96)
So does it do you have the flexibility to offer an incentive on your website with your publisher to capture that email like a disk enterprise?

JV Hilliard (27:22.44)
well, no, I mean, I could do that if I wanted to. But ultimately, you know, I asked them if they want to sign up for a newsletter or if you want to say, hey, if you sign up for my newsletter, you get book one at 50 % of the cost or 25 % of the cost or whatever it is to get them in the door. Sure. And there are services out there for that, like Bookbub and Bookbarbarian and others where you're giving away your book, either at zero cost or like 99 sets for a period of time.

getting people to download it in the hopes that they read it, and then the next one they buy, right? So it's like for me, I can't sell you book four if you haven't read book one. And so as you know, so if I give you book one, and that allows me to then sell you two, three and four, because you read it, and you're now addicted to it, then that helps for me. And once you get beyond that first book up and running, people will see that you're a legitimate author, they're sometimes afraid that

Christian Brim (27:54.36)
Mmm, yeah.

Christian Brim (27:58.83)
Right.

JV Hilliard (28:14.844)
if they buy a book one that you're not going to finish book twos and book threes and that happens a lot in my game. you know, for me, I wanted to make sure that I got additional product out and that's what that's there for.

Christian Brim (28:24.426)
How, how quickly did you who published the second book?

JV Hilliard (28:28.912)
It almost took the first book took me about a year to get it published. The second one was six months. The third one was four or five months. And the last one took a little longer because I didn't expect to write that I was already it was a it was supposed to be a trilogy that became a quadrilogy, but it worked out fine. And I know that in this day and age of millennials and Gen Z's and Gen Alpha is not having a

they're used to binging things, right? They're used to having things on demand. The idea of rapid releasing books is really a big part of what we do these days. But when you're writing epic fantasy, it just takes that long. Even if I wrote a book in three months, I still to get it edited. You know, and that's gonna take another three months. So for me, six months is a good cycle, even though I may lose some of those that don't have the attention span to wait.

Christian Brim (28:56.546)
Yes.

Christian Brim (29:08.366)
Yeah.

JV Hilliard (29:20.98)
for that, you know, and it just happens sometimes. But it's just the nature of the kind of books I put out. I know a lot of authors that write, you 25 30,000 word novels. And that's great. But it's just not the it's not the the genre that I'm in. Like when you buy my book, you expect it to be, you know, 500 pages there.

Christian Brim (29:40.59)
I had a question and it lost. Let me see if I'll come up with it. No, I lost it. Okay. Wow.

JV Hilliard (29:50.32)
Okay.

JV Hilliard (29:57.458)
We'll come back. You know what will happen is we'll start talking and all of a sudden it'll pop back. Always does. You can hear the dogs in the background. They just got home. Yep.

Christian Brim (30:00.652)
Yeah, it will. It's my old brain.

So the dogs are back. I heard them. Yes. From walkies. Yes. What advice would you give someone that was looking at turning in their passion into a business, whether that's writing or I mean, it really doesn't matter what it is. What advice would you give somebody if they came to you and said, hey, I'm working this gig.

JV Hilliard (30:18.792)
I love you.

JV Hilliard (30:27.806)
Help me!

Christian Brim (30:36.718)
But I really don't want to, my passion is X. What would you tell them?

JV Hilliard (30:41.832)
Yeah, so I was answered that in a couple of ways. mean, first of all, sometimes your passions aren't great businesses, right? You know, so you you might love to do a certain thing that's either super difficult to get into or very expensive to get into or doesn't work as a business very well. And so it's okay to maintain that as a hobby. And it can be you know, you could be hypersensitive to it and just be looking for that stuff all the time. I see people my brother owns a sports collectible store. And that's the way it is sometimes you buy stuff he never will sell. And I'm like, it's a piece. It's a piece of cardboard.

Christian Brim (30:47.694)
true.

Christian Brim (31:09.293)
Right.

JV Hilliard (31:11.752)
with a picture on it, sell it, that's the money, that's your currency. But he's a collector, right? And so sometimes those folks fall into a business that may not be the best for them. So I would suggest that if you are going to start a business, make sure it's something one, you're passionate about, you don't mind doing, like you would do it for free, because you enjoy doing it. But you also know it well enough to get involved in it. Like I think a lot of people make the mistake of

Christian Brim (31:31.342)
Mm-hmm.

JV Hilliard (31:38.492)
you know, thinking that their domain experts are subject matter experts in something and then they find out they're really not this is really kind of a hobby. And then when they get into it, there are all sorts of barriers to entry and or things that they didn't anticipate. And as a result, they have an issue, you know, with, you know, continuing the business. And the last thing I would leave them with is like Cortez burning the boats, right? Like if you're gonna do it, you got to do it. There is no going back if you have one foot in the old job and

Christian Brim (32:06.029)
Yeah.

JV Hilliard (32:08.231)
That's a safety valve for you and you might be able to go back to that if this doesn't work out, your business isn't going to work. Like you literally have to be all in. This is the only thing that's going to survive. You have to focus on it 110 % of the time because that's what it takes to be successful in business. I'm sorry. Like maybe there's a few people out there that are lucky and can do something and it grows on its own or you know, they, they just hit the lottery the one day. They have a lot of friends during the tech bubble that that happened to. They just happened to be at a company that

Christian Brim (32:35.638)
Right. Sure.

JV Hilliard (32:37.694)
hit it big and then they tried replicating that second and third time and it didn't work and it can't figure out what it is. And meanwhile, it's it's that subject matter expertise that they don't they don't know and and or the time commitment they were going to put into it. So for me, make sure you love it. Make sure you would do it for free. If it doesn't work out something that you still fall back on and make it a hobby or make it you know, maybe a hobby business kind of thing but also commit to it be present in it at every moment anywhere.

trying to find a sale, trying to move it forward, trying to market it better, always trying to improve it. It's got to be something that's a 24 seven thing in order for it to be successful. Or in most cases, it won't be it's the hardest thing in the world. What's what's the stat on it? Nine out of 10 businesses fail and 19 or 18 out of 20, or 19 out of 20 fail in the first two years. You know, so realize the odds going in are not good. And you've got to be able to put everything you got into

Christian Brim (33:20.76)
Sure.

Christian Brim (33:31.564)
Yeah, I had the author Todd Henry, he's written several books, all nonfiction, but his most popular is the accidental creative. And he talks about the Greek word for suffering. think it's kairos, not kairos, pikeros. Anyway, but passion, the Greek word for passion actually means to suffer.

And, and he was like, if you're not willing to suffer for your, your, what you want, you may not have to suffer, but more likely you will. And if you're not willing to do that, then it's not really a passion. And I, I think, you know, a lot of people do, they, they think, well, I know how to cook. Therefore I can open a restaurant. No, that's not how that works. and I like what you said about like,

understanding the industry, understanding the business model. How do people make money in this business? Every industry has got its quirks and you've got to understand it. And if you don't understand it, come alongside someone that can teach you so that you can figure out how to do it. But then also that idea of burning the ships because

It's too easy when you do have that rip cord that you can you can pull to pull it like because you're gonna you're gonna panic you're gonna get into that point where like shit this isn't working. What what what am I doing? What am I gonna do now? And if you have that safety valve to say well I'll just go back and do X you will because that's that's what your brain is going to tell you to do.

JV Hilliard (35:26.12)
Right. It's the safe way out. And, you know, I'm not saying that that doesn't work. Sometimes you might have to do that to make some side money to make it come over the top. But there is going to be something that will challenge you. And you've got to say, you know what, I'm doubling down, I'm going to take that loan against my house, or I'm going to, you know, I'm to go and do door dash on the weekends to make those extra money to put the dollars into the business, you have to do something. And that happens more than once most of the time. And even it sounds simple, like, we're writing.

like think about this before you wrote your book, did you did you know everything that was going to go into that you thought you were going to write a book, right? Then you found a publisher or in this case, you wrote it independently, but you found a publication services company, and they found you an editor, then you had to design a cover, then you had to write a blurb, then you had to market it, then you had to find out how to format it to get it online correctly. And then you had to do and then and then and then, right. And that's the kind of thing that happens where you don't think about it. People think that I get up every day, go to a coffee shop and write. That's not my life. You know, my life is

Christian Brim (35:59.054)
hell no. No.

JV Hilliard (36:22.992)
fishing around for the right social media, the right groups on Facebook to sell my book in or reaching out to the right people to help me collaborate and do stuff and paying money to travel to a convention to sell books to break even just so I can get in front of 60,000 people at a comic con or a galaxy con. Like, there's risk. It's a business. And a lot of people don't see it that way. They see it. that's so nice. You're an author. How did you How does that work? Well, it's like any other business. You dig down deep.

Christian Brim (36:41.39)
Sure.

Christian Brim (36:49.742)
It, my wife was watching and then she stopped watching as frequently happens. She'll, she'll start watching something and I'm not watching it. And then she gets bored with it. I'm, I'm, I'm engaged and she was watching this, history channel on, Walt Disney and, it was, it was fascinating because there was a lot of his story. didn't know, but just the challenge after challenge after challenge, but how much he

All he consistently, he just doubled down and went all in. Like I would hate to play poker against the guy because you know, he goes out there initially to California and he's got $40 to his name and he buys himself a first class ticket. He's that sure of what he's doing, right? Three day train ride. And then when he is is trying to get the funding for Snow White.

he, he put all of his money, sold his car, mortgaged his house. Like he, again, I mean, time after time, if again, he was just all in, like this is either going to work or I'm, out. Like, and it was, it was, it was a fascinating story to listen to that journey because yeah, you, you know, I was introduced to Walt Disney, you know, on Sunday nights with, I don't remember what the show was.

the Walt Disney show that was on Sunday nights and you see this guy in his 60s and and you're like, you know, he's he's got it made he's worth at that time, 10s of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars and and like, that was easy. No, no, no, no, no, no, you're just seeing the end product. You're not you're not you're not watching how the sausage was made.

JV Hilliard (38:40.084)
Right? You're seeing the end of the journey, which everybody wants, but not how it got there. Right? Yeah. 100%. And that's true for any, think any good entrepreneur has that story. I heard Mark Cuban say how he used to make basically ketchup and mustard sandwiches. It's the same thing. You know, you just believe in something so much, you're all in on it. You just have to have the intestinal fortitude to not only double down, but make sure it's not going to fail. Right? And there are stumbles like there are

plenty of those stories, you watch all those entrepreneurial things. I think one of my favorite documentary series was, it has to be about a decade old now was that the the men who built America. And you watch what Rockefeller did in Carnegie did and how they and how they got there. And none of them were born that way. They were just they've made themselves that way. And so not to say that you're you know that you and I are going to be the next Rockefeller or Disney. That's not what I'm getting at.

Christian Brim (39:20.141)
yeah, yeah.

JV Hilliard (39:37.46)
But to be successful in your business, whether it's the book that you have on the wall behind you or the, or the books that I'm writing, you know, you've got to be all in, you've got to say, they know what, I know, I'm to give away this weekend, but I've got to go to the city to sell books, and people got to they have to know me. And it's like a band, right? You know, you don't start by opening up at Madison Square Garden, you earn that you work your butt off, you do the Tuesday nights at the local, you know,

watering hole hoping that someone notices you or that they like you enough, they're gonna buy your stuff. In this day and age though, I mean, my books could be sold. mean, literally, put up all the sweat and tears that went into that book and it's 499. And sometimes Amazon discounts it to 299. And you're like, what is that? Like that piece of art that 500 words that year I put into it, someone's buying for 299. It's like, yeah, right. That's exactly right.

Christian Brim (40:21.41)
Right.

Christian Brim (40:27.982)
Yeah, and you're getting a buck.

Christian Brim (40:32.416)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, it's, it's not only, believing in yourself, but the, the, the fortitude of being able to, because, you know, Roy's business partner was his brother and his brother tried to talk him out of stuff all the time. And, like, you know, as an entrepreneur, you're going to have loved ones, friends, family that are going to label you crazy.

JV Hilliard (40:32.532)
You're gonna sell a lot of books a lot of books

Christian Brim (41:00.522)
and say, I don't understand and they don't and that's okay. But you know, you've got to be able to lovingly say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. Even when you don't.

JV Hilliard (41:10.132)
Yeah. 100 % 100 % true or like friends are like, I don't get it. And then they wish they invested or like, I'll never forget this. So when I told my mom, I was leaving my job on the hill to start my own company. She was like, well, why don't you just go into? Why are you? Why don't you just go into computers was her answer. She didn't know what it was. She just wanted me to go into computers. And I was like, but I can do this. You know what I mean? And you know, it took four or five months for me to get my first couple of clients and the people

Christian Brim (41:17.966)
Sure.

Christian Brim (41:24.62)
Ho-Chow, why are you going to do that?

Christian Brim (41:32.194)
You should code.

JV Hilliard (41:39.892)
trust a 28 year old kid that was doing this stuff where I had people saying that these guys are a flash in the pan or these guys are too young to be doing what they're doing. My business partner was 25 and I was 28 when we started it was like, who are you guys? Like that's one guy that was his quote in the paper. Who are these guys? There are these guys are flash in the pan. Who do these guys think they are? And you're like, and that just fuels it, right? That's just billboard or built, know, like in the locker room material, you know, and you're just like, oh, you just love it.

But you're right. mean, people, they don't get it. And sometimes they just never will. You know, some people it's great. Just get up, do your nine to five, go home. I could never do it. It would kill me.

Christian Brim (42:17.518)
Most people, most people are and I think, you know, people like us are wired differently and, you know, they can't understand and that's okay. I mean, it's not up to us to convince them. Well, Joe, how do people buy your books, find out more about where you're going to be next?

JV Hilliard (42:33.822)
Thank you.

JV Hilliard (42:41.192)
Yeah, you could find me pretty much anywhere if you do a search for JV Hilliard for my book. So if you're an audiobook listener, or you prefer ebooks for your Kindle, or you want to hardback, you could find my stuff just by googling the name JV Hilliard. I would prefer that you buy it from Dragon Moon Press.com, where I get the most

bang from my buck on my royalty stuff, you can buy it there. But if you are an Amazon shopper, or you use audible, you're at a Barnes and Noble, you'll be able to find my stuff there as well. And or if you come to my website, jv hilliard.com. I know that's surprising. It's you know, but if you go there, you'll be able to buy the books there and or you can, you know, leave your name and I'll get back to you. We I am not the author that sends out an email on my newsletter every week, you're not gonna

Christian Brim (43:17.442)
Yeah, well, it's a great one.

JV Hilliard (43:30.002)
find me in your spam. send it out when I've got something to talk about. And so if you'd like that, I'm trust me, you'll get maybe two or three emails from me a year, just talk about the new thing that's coming out. And that's it. But you know, the website will also direct you there. And it also has a button on there for you to find me at speaking engagements. So if you want to find out what Comic Con or Galaxy Con or Dragon Con I'm going to be at next, you can find me there and or you can ask me to come and speak at your event too. So if you have a

local Viking a thon somewhere or You you have you know some nerdy book club Yeah, that wants to do that I'll come out and sell just let me know and if I can make it I'm gonna make it so yeah You could find me there and I'm really easy Joe at JV Hillier comm is my email address and I try to get back to everybody within 24 hours

Christian Brim (44:02.19)
Scottish Highland Games, I dunno.

Christian Brim (44:15.662)
I love it. Thank you very much for being on the show and sharing your experience.

JV Hilliard (44:19.988)
It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

Christian Brim (44:22.444)
Listeners, if you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message, tell us what you want to hear and I'll get rid of Joe. Until then, ta ta for now.

JV Hilliard (44:36.308)
you