Lessons Learned in Self Publishing with Hershey Pup

Erik and Jeanne Anderson have been full-time RVing with their beloved “Hershey Pup” since hitting the road 2020. After their primary remote employment ended unexpectedly, Erik started writing RV related content and the couple did some workamping save on rent. Then they decided to publish a children’s book based on Hershey Pup’s RV adventures.

Knowing nothing about self publishing at the time, they did extensive research and figured it out. They are now working on their second book in the series. And, they share their thoughts on the publishing process, working with editors and illustrators, marketing a book once it’s launched, and what they’ll do differently next time. They also discuss their best methods for finding remote writing gigs and workamping jobs. Spoiler alert: That boils down to direct outreach and relationship marketing.

Learn More at ⁠www.HersheyPupAdventures.com⁠

GUEST BIO: Erik and his wife Jeanne have been living, remote-working, and traveling full-time around the U.S. and Canada in their mid-size Class A motorhome since July 2020. They love hiking, biking, kayaking, and adventuring with their beloved Cavalier King Charles spaniel, “Hershey Pup”. A well-traveled pup, Hershey has happily wagged his tail through all of the “Lower 48” U.S. states, 6 Canadian provinces, and 38 national parks to date. Erik enjoys contributing his writings to many RV-related magazines, blogs and social media groups. They have published their first children’s book based on Hershey Pup’s RV adventures.

Connect With Erik:

Lessons Learned in Self Publishing

With Hershey Pup’s RV Adventures Authors Erik & Jeanne Anderson

Your Host: Jim Nelson

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Products:

K9 Sport Sack: ⁠https://amzn.to/3PyNgQF⁠

Publishing:

Kindle Direct Publishing: ⁠https://kdp.amazon.com/⁠
Ingram Spark: ⁠https://www.ingramspark.com/⁠
Fiverr: ⁠https://www.fiverr.com/⁠
Illustrator: ⁠https://kidsbookart.com/⁠
Be More Dog: ⁠htts://bemoredog.net⁠

Remote Work:

Indeed: ⁠https://indeed.com⁠

Workamping:

The RV Entrepreneur:

Mutliple Revenue Streams: ⁠https://therventrepreneur.com/multiple-revenue-streams/⁠
RVE #337 – Relationship Marketing: ⁠https://therventrepreneur.com/rve337/

Listen to The RV Entrepreneur Episode #337

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The RV Entrepreneur #337 Full Episode Transcript:

Lessons Learned in Self Publishing with Hershey Pup’s RV Adventures Authors Erik & Jeanne

ERIK: To start sooner rather than later. You know, if you get that idea and just dive in and start doing it. And I would say also just to seek out professionals, seek out people who have done it already.

RV LIFE: Welcome to the RV Entrepreneur Podcast, the weekly show for nomads, work campers, RVers and entrepreneurs looking to earn a living or build a business while enjoying the RV lifestyle. This week’s host is Jim Nelson. Let’s settle in and enjoy the RV entrepreneur podcast brought to you by RV life.

JIM: And we’re back with the RV Entrepreneur podcast. I’m Jim at RV life, and this episode is a must listen for any nomads considering publishing their first book. Specifically, I’m talking about self-publishing here, and to niche down a bit further, we’re talking about an illustrated children’s book. That’s because my guests here are Eric and Jean Anderson, and they’ve self-published the first in a series of children’s books all about their dog Hershey, and their adventures together on the road. But the details Eric and Jean share should be helpful to any first time authors, regardless of your genre. And even if you’re not an aspiring book author, keep listening. This couple hit the road with some steady, remote employment. That’s smart. But when those jobs unexpectedly ended, Eric and Jean quickly adapted. They share plenty of tips for transitioning to the nomadic lifestyle and developing multiple revenue streams. See show notes for my article on that in the RV news blog. Eric has been writing RV ING content for a while, and he’s now a writer for a few RV Life Network sites. He shares the best way he’s found these writing gigs, and that comes down to connecting with others and building relationships. Don’t miss RV episode 337 for my discussion all about relationship marketing, but I digress. Eric and Jean also enjoy work camping to save on rent and make extra money so they share the best way they’ve found those jobs. And again, that comes down to reaching out and yep, relationship building. But then we meet Hershey Pup and take a deep dive into self-publishing. We discuss collaborating with editors and illustrators and the pros and cons of publishing only on Amazon. I share some of my experience self-publishing our Be More Dog book, and Eric and Jean agree that marketing can be just as hard as the writing. Big surprise. Some of their most fruitful efforts included. Yeah, relationship marketing. Finally, they share some lessons learned along the way and what they do differently. So join Hershey Pup on this adventure into self-publishing right after this short break.

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JIM: Eric and Jean. Thank you guys so much for joining me today. I’m looking forward to our chat and learning all about Hershey and what you’re doing and publishing your first book. We met kind of through our connections at RV life, and technically, since this is the RV Life Entrepreneur podcast, I tend to ask all my guests two simple questions. First, just to get to know you, when were you first introduced to the RV life and does that look any different now?

ERIK: Oh hi Jim, it’s great to be here. We appreciate it.

JEANNE: Yeah, thanks for having us.

ERIK: For us, it really started as a joke back in 2016, I guess. Genius registered nurse. And I was a vice president of human resources, and we were both pretty stressed out in our corporate careers, in healthcare careers. And my boss, one night after a particularly rough day, she was joking with me and said, you know, Eric, we should just just bag all this stuff and buy a motorhome and just travel around the country. So we laughed. You know, a funny joke. Sure. And then I came home and told Jeannie, she laughed. And then my boss, she said it like 2 or 3 more times over the next couple of weeks or so. And the next time I mentioned to Jeannie that that Mary Ellen had said that, Jeannie said, do you think we could do that, Eric? And, uh, we’d never owned an RV before. Never been even been in an RV for that matter about RV. Didn’t know anything about it. So I started googling and YouTubing and realized that, uh, full time RV was actually a thing.

JEANNE: Yeah, it’s a thing.

ERIK: So we made that decision back then in 2016, that in, uh, four years we would kind of purge everything, sell our house and and be full time RVers.

JEANNE: Mhm. And he investigates everything to death, you know. So yeah. You know he did a lot of research. Yeah. A lot of research a lot of research that helps.

JIM: Some people tend to just hit the road and it can get scary that way.

JEANNE: I think we could have done that. Yeah.

ERIK: We’re not real spontaneous kind of people.

JIM: And you’re in the same rig now.

JEANNE: We are.

ERIK: Yeah. It’s our our first and only RV. With all that research, I think we did a good job in terms of choosing the type of rig. We have a 30 foot class A that’s been absolutely perfect for us since day one. We’ve bought a brand new back in 2017, and then we’ve been traveling full time in it for a little over three and a half, almost four years now.

JEANNE: He’s like my mister MacGyver. He can fix anything. And, you know, he made it all safe for us. And really, you know, if we sell it, we have to really be prepared to. I mean, people just sell it, and they didn’t do anything to it. Eric has done so much to this rig that we would just have to make sure that they understand that it’s kind of really.

ERIK: It’s pretty special.

JEANNE: It’s pretty special.

ERIK: We can be pretty self-sufficient. It served us well.

JIM: That does come in handy being the MacGyver. And we know exactly what you’re talking about. Renee and I customize our fifth wheel specific to our needs, with workstations for digital nomads and satellite internet and all sorts of stuff that really the guy that eventually did buy it tore it all out. But we could talk about that all day. You mentioned kind of the corporate life, but you’re obviously been entrepreneurs now for a while. What do you think it takes to be an entrepreneur?

ERIK: Yeah. You know, that’s actually kind of a hard question for us because we’ve never really thought of ourselves as entrepreneurs. Neither Jeannie and I are really risk takers. Much. We’re tourist signs, so we have our hooves firmly planted in the ground. Yeah, so? So that’s kind of new to us. So for us, entrepreneurship has been rather new.

JEANNE: Very new.

ERIK: Yeah. Very new. And for us it’s involved with, you know, writing and publishing our first children’s book, taking off on that, trying to develop some little new income streams. We started out remote working, and I know we’ll talk about that a little bit later. And we lost those jobs. And we actually we come to realize that even if you have a regular, you know, W2 in-office job, that’s not necessarily all the security that people tend to think it is.

JEANNE: It was security for a while until it.

ERIK: And then it disappeared.

JEANNE: And then it was just sort of like, sorry, can’t work for us anymore until.

JIM: It’s not right.

JEANNE: Until it’s gone. And it really it really kind of threw us for a loop.

JIM: So let’s take a step back, if you don’t mind. Let’s take a step back. And why did you guys first hit the road after that joke. And it started to become more serious. And you did research. I bet you did some preparation. So why did you hit the road and how did you prepare for the move to RV life?

JEANNE: Well, we were both pretty depressed. Did you say? Stressed. Oh, stressed? Yeah, we were both pretty stressed with our jobs. It was just before Covid, actually. It wasn’t. You know, for four years there was no Covid. And just before we left Covid hit and, you know, we didn’t really work through Covid because it had just struck when we left and we were just so stressed out, so stressed out by, um, just our jobs, you know, working in a nursing home and just sort of, uh, you know, coming home and not being happy. You know, we had money, we made decent money. But, you know, we would come home and just look at each other, like, so much longer. Are we going to do this? We’re young, pretty young, you know, we’re.

ERIK: 59 and 60 when we we actually launched into full time. But it was that typical rat race routine, I think, that we were into and on Long Island, New York.

JEANNE: Which is, uh, which.

ERIK: Is expensive and crowded and hectic. Yeah. So that’s kind of all that drove us to it.

JEANNE: We figured, let’s do this while we’re young enough to really enjoy it. And then, uh, we’ll think about what’s next when it’s time to think about what’s next.

JIM: So as you discovered what was next, how did you prepare? What were what were the biggest challenge faced when transitioning to the nomadic lifestyle there?

ERIK: Well, as I said, we set a four year goal for ourselves to to learn about it, to prepare, wind down our careers, pay off all of our debts, etc. so all of that went fairly smoothly and we just were soaking all the information in. We just learned as much as we could to prepare ourselves, and that’s really paid off. I think we’ve been so successful with our full time journeys because we did so much preparation.

JEANNE: You know, purging all our stuff.

ERIK: And I was just going to say, I think that was one of the most challenging things, at least it was for me, was purging like 90% of all of our belongings that last few months. It was just so much stuff was good. And believe it. Yeah. So that was that was hard, both time wise, physically and and emotionally I think.

JEANNE: Yeah, definitely. My daughter got most of our furniture, which is good. She just bought a home. And when we go home to visit her we see our furniture. And that’s kind of nice actually, to know that we, you know, helped out a little bit where we see our table, we see our pictures and she’s very happy and we’re very happy. So, um, that was the furniture. Most of that went to her. The other stuff was just stuff that was in our attic, you know, it was just in our attic. And it was like, listen, yeah, there were.

ERIK: Boxes we open that we hadn’t looked in for ten years. So, you know, how important was that stuff? Stuff? It was a stuff. Difficult experience.

JIM: Yeah, lots of stuff freeing too.

ERIK: And then the setting up of of health insurance and banking and mail and all of that was certainly a challenge and domiciling and that type of thing. But we worked through all that pretty.

JEANNE: Well step by step. Yeah.

JIM: So Eric, you mentioned winding down career. Are you guys or did you consider yourself retired at the time or you were you transitioning your jobs to remote?

ERIK: Yeah, semi-retired because before we left, um, again, my my boss, the CEO Mary Ellen, was just a sweetheart. She had actually offered. She said, you know, Eric, well, you guys are driving around the country. There’s got to be something you can do for us. So she said, think about it. After 32 years in human resources, I didn’t want to do HR work anymore. So I actually asked our vice president of marketing if there was anything we could do for them, and they said, yeah, definitely. So what I ended up doing, and Jeannie joined me for a little over three years, was assisting the marketing department. It’s an assisted living company. We built and ran assisted living facilities in Long Island and Westchester, New York and New Jersey. So 26 of them. So what we did was call monitoring, quality assurance, quality monitoring for folks who would call in to the assisted living and talk with the sales department. Those calls were all recorded and then at our leisure. And that was one of the wonderful things. It was so flexible at our leisure. We could listen to those calls, monitor them for quality and then provide feedback back to. As the organization. And it was a beautiful thing. It was super.

JEANNE: Flexible, very, very convenient, decent money. And like he did it late at night. I did it in the afternoon, you know, it was whenever we wanted to do it.

ERIK: But as the story goes last, just this past last summer, a new CEO came on board and and she wanted to, um, you know, kind of cut expenses and trim things a bit. So they took all that work back in-house to give it to somebody, and then that kind of cut us out.

JIM: That’s what I was going to ask about. There was I kind of heard the hinting there about how you lost your work. Tell us about what happened and how you adapted, because it really did help to have a remote job when hitting the road. That’s a one great stream of income. It really helps when new people hit the road. But what happened?

ERIK: Uh, we freaked out.

JEANNE: Yeah.

JIM: Sure. Don’t we all?

ERIK: Yeah, because that was like $2,000 a month of income that all of a sudden just went away.

JEANNE: Yeah, it was scary. Eric’s a wonderful writer. And he also, besides doing that, a remote job. He would write articles for people. And that’s still happening. He writes articles.

ERIK: I beefed that up a little bit and started writing more articles, which is good. And then, uh, I moderate for Facebook groups, RV related Facebook groups and get paid for some of that work as well, which was helped. And then I think, as I mentioned to you in our notes, it really kicked us in the butt to let’s write the Hershey Book. Sure. We’ve been thinking about that for a long time and just kept putting it.

JEANNE: Off, and people kept on saying, you should write a book about Hershey. You know you should. And we laughed. And we really did think about it. But because we had the other job, we really just never got the chance to do it.

JIM: So I do want to get into that in much more detail. But let’s flesh out this. You know how you adapted a bit. I understand you’re currently work camping, right? You discovered work camping where you work camping. And what are your duties?

ERIK: Well, as a matter of fact, that was a blessing in disguise because last summer we lost our remote jobs back in June of last year. And last year we did our first camp hosting assignment, and that was as camp host at Killens Pond State Park in Felton, Delaware, about 30 minutes from one set of our kids and granddaughters. So it was while we were camp hosting that we lost the remote jobs and lost the income. Thank God we were camp hosting because we were basically living there for free, having to do very minimal work, which was quite enjoyable. And that took a lot of pressure off.

JEANNE: Yeah, that we didn’t have to pay for where we were.

ERIK: And like most camp hosting jobs, it was it was kind of typical, I think, you know, checking in the campers, making sure the sites are all ready for them. The Packers would leave, cleaning up the fire pits, making sure things were cleaned up, the bathhouses.

JEANNE: Cabins, things like that. But with other people, it wasn’t just us. Other hosts? Yeah. Other hosts. Camp host. You know, we were lucky. Really? Well, yeah. And then as the winter came around, we started looking for someplace that was warmer. And we got a place in Florida. And that’s where we are right now in Florida. Yeah, yeah.

ERIK: We took, uh, camp hosting assignment in Indian River County, Florida, near Vero Beach and a couple of county parks. And we just finished up those assignments a couple of weeks ago.

JIM: Okay. Where did you find these work? Camping gigs?

ERIK: Uh, the first one in Delaware. We found directly because we were visiting our kids the fall before that. So we knew we wanted to do camp hosting the following year. So we visited each of the state parks, and we met the managers, and we talked about what kind of opportunities and availability they had and what the process would be. So it was great to be able to make that face to face connection.

JEANNE: Yeah, not everyone can do that. Not everyone can do that. Just happened to be in Delaware. So we decided to actually go and meet people. Yeah, most of it has to be online. But we decided to do face to face because we could.

ERIK: Nice. Yeah, exactly. And that worked out well. Then they referred us online of course, where we filled out the online applications. We had a couple of zoom interviews and then they offered us the position there for the Florida position. I actually did it because we did it in August of last year, which is like way behind the eight ball for trying to find a position down in Florida during peak snowbird season. But because of the loss of the jobs and stuff, things changed drastically for us. So I did kind of a shotgun approach. I developed a couple’s work, camping and camp host resume, and so I actually sent that directly to over 70 RV parks, state parks, county parks, RV resorts, etc. in Florida, Delaware and Alabama. So like I said, a real shotgun scatter approach. And it did follow up calls and things like that. And so we actually got four offers out of doing that. And that’s how we got the Indian River County, Florida positions is through us sending them our resume and then them calling us, you know, a more traditional way or these days, the better way perhaps, is through some of the online resources. Certainly, you know, for the national and state parks, there’s volunteer gov where a lot of the volunteer opportunities are listed. State parks often have their own section of their websites for volunteers, where they often list the opportunities that they have there as well. There’s that website folks call work Pampers.com big group, both Facebook, and then they put out a wonderful newsletter as well. It has great opportunities also.

JIM: So I managed the Work Camper group on Facebook and I’ve. Been. We’ve been where campers subscribers forever. That group is grown crazy since Covid. There’s just hundred and 40,000 members now, and I’ll get all the links to these resources in the show notes. But let’s talk about like I do want to get into the writing and I promise we’re going to get there. But you mentioned some initial remote jobs once you kind of lost the key job that you had, you went on the road with a remote job. Were there other remote jobs and where did you find those when you first hit the road?

ERIK: Um. Really not you know, I focused on my article writing and, uh, and working on the book. Genie actually did find another remote job through Indeed.com, and she got hired for that and tried that one out, but it just wasn’t a good fit for her.

JEANNE: Yeah, I’m not really a computer wise. I had to be. Yeah, I had to really be fast. And it just wasn’t, you know, it was a little too.

ERIK: Intense for her.

JEANNE: It was. It was too intense for me. And so that didn’t work out.

JIM: Let’s talk about the writing then. You do write for RV life. Now that’s full disclosure. But when you first started writing, where did you find writing jobs?

ERIK: Well, you know, I gotta thank Stephanie Puglisi of the RV Atlas for that because Stephanie and Jeremy, you know, I’ve always been part of their group. And, uh, she actually reached out to me at one point and offered me an opportunity to write my first article for Togo RV and, uh, road trippers. So that’s when I kind of cut my teeth on article writing and wrote a couple articles for them. And then things just kind of grew from there. And, uh, I’ve been fortunate enough to have folks reach out to me with article topics and offer that I could write for them. And then I’ve done some, you know, proactive pitching myself to various organizations and blogs as well. And, uh, Fmca Magazine and Escapees magazine have had articles in both of those. And it’s been fun. It’s been a lot of fun to be able to do that.

JEANNE: Kind of writing. Really good at it. Yeah.

JIM: And that initiative clearly pays off. I mean, you did it with the word camping. You did it with the writing. You reached out, you created a resume, and you kind of took the initiative to get there. So that works. But I want to talk about Hershey Pup. First I got to know why the name Hershey.

ERIK: Uh.

JEANNE: My granddaughter one day, she was she was young. And I said, if we get a puppy, what do you want to call him? And she just said, Hershey. And that was it. It never changed. It never faltered. Never. Um, you know. Oh, I changed my mind. It was Hershey. Hershey, Hershey. And that was it. He was named Hershey. So. And that was.

ERIK: That was a year before we got it.

JEANNE: Right. Was the year is that right? Yeah.

ERIK: So the name kind of grew. And coincidentally, he came from Pennsylvania, not too far from Hershey, Pennsylvania. But it’s a pure coincidence. Yeah.

JIM: And being our RVers, I had to figure out whether or not there was a connection there with the Hershey Show or a chocolate lab, which he is not. So what type of dog is Hershey and how long have you had him?

JEANNE: He is a Blenheim King Charles Cavalier. Here he is. He’s probably like, I’m sick of this here.

ERIK: Listeners can’t see him, but here’s here’s Hershey.

JEANNE: He’s really the.

JIM: Star of the show. Dog.

JEANNE: Yeah, he is, he is. People will come up and once in a blue moon will hear, is that Hershey? And we’re like, are you kidding me? People really do recognize him.

JIM: That’s great.

JEANNE: He’s just such a good boy and pretty funny.

ERIK: I always tell the story that Hershey and I were at an overlook in Bryce Canyon National Park a couple of years ago, and, uh, from behind me, I heard this woman shout, oh my God, is that Hershey pup? I turned around, it’s this woman and her husband on vacation. They’re from Wisconsin, and they recognize Hershey from Facebook. And that kind of thing happens all over the country.

JIM: That’s wonderful.

JEANNE: Knocked on the door in Delaware. She’s like, you don’t know me. I don’t know you, but can I meet Hershey? We’re like, okay, so a lot of fun stuff like that happens a lot because Eric puts a lot of stuff online and people just recognize them. So it’s really cute. It’s really cute. It’s really fun.

ERIK: And as we said, that’s where the book idea came from, is we had a lot of people online saying, you guys should write a book about Hershey’s Adventures. Okay? People had said that over time.

JEANNE: And then we had the time to do it since we weren’t, you know, remote working anymore. We just had the time to do it.

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JIM: So we’ll get into the publishing there. But I noticed we always love sharing resources here, and I noticed in one of the illustrations you have Hershey in a backpack style carrier. What is that? And do you know the brand or. I mean, he’s a smaller dog so you can carry him around, but what is your backpack carrier that you have there?

ERIK: Oh yeah, it’s a canine carrier. And, um, I believe that’s the name of the company. Canine canine carriers or canine backpacks. They’re. Great, uh, super high quality. And they make backpacks just for carrying dogs, various styles and various sizes and, uh, works really well. So, you know, when I go mountain biking, I’ll carry him in the backpack. Or sometimes if we go on an extra long hike because he’s a little dog, go an extra long hike. I’ll bring the backpack along in case he, uh, has trouble.

JEANNE: Yeah. Putzeys out and just. Yeah, you know.

JIM: Awesome. So let’s get into the book. I want to know, like, which came first? You kind of hinted about how the Adventures of Hershey came before the book, or was the book an idea? And then you started sharing Adventures of Hershey. Why did you start writing and publishing a children’s book and based on Hershey’s Adventures? And and were you already sharing the adventures online and then did the book which came first there?

ERIK: Yeah. Uh, Sharon Hershey and his following online came first. I mean, Hershey has always gone pretty much everywhere with us. Yeah. So anywhere we went, he was there. And and with all my prolific Facebook posting, Hershey was pretty much always in all the posts and all the photographs. To this day, when I do posts and there’s not a picture of Hershey in there, I get flack from people out there in social media.

JEANNE: Where is Hershey?

ERIK: Yeah, so that really started it. And then that started his own following just by, you know, people seeing Hershey and all of the posts there. And then as I said through that, people then made suggestions about writing a book about him, uh, about our travels or about Hershey’s Adventures. And, and when we thought about it, it.

JEANNE: Made sense to be a children’s book. Yeah, it just made sense. You know.

ERIK: Kids, one of the things we’ve always loved is in campgrounds all around the country is this we’ve always loved watching children, being outside, enjoying nature, being active and having such a good time. So we thought, well, let’s write a book about Hershey’s RV adventures to kind of tie in with that.

JEANNE: Um, and you know, kids are so cute. They’re like, can we put your I don’t think any child had just come up to Hershey. They always ask, can we pet your dog? You know, they’re really polite. Yeah. And, um, the idea of the New England states was the beginning of our adventures. That’s where we went. And I don’t know, the flowers and the. And the birds. We just, I don’t know, educational. We figured, let’s try something a little educational for the kids. And, um, we just, uh, we decided to just go with that. It was just an idea, and we just went with it.

JIM: So once you had the idea, let’s talk about the process. I’d love to kind of talk about the lessons learned self publishing here. You know, you published your first book, you dove in, obviously. How did it all begin? How did the pieces fall into place? Eric, you’re obviously MacGyver. You think things thoroughly. Did you plan this all out or did you just jump in.

JEANNE: A lot of brainstorming, you know, jotting things down? You know, we decided we were going to do the birds and the flowers for the New England states.

ERIK: And like most things we get into, including RV, had no clue what we were doing. Yeah, we just had we were starting from ground zero. So, um, a lot of research. Obviously Google and YouTube are your friends, so we learned a lot about the process and what would be needed. You know, through that.

JEANNE: The hardest part was the illustrating. We couldn’t get anyone to get Hershey to even look like Hershey. And that was the hardest part. We went through so many illustrators and we’re like, this isn’t happening. This isn’t working.

ERIK: Yeah. The, um, the illustration part was tough because once we finished the manuscript, we found a professional editor, children’s book editor, and we found her through Fiverr. She was fantastic. So she helped edit the manuscript for us. And then the next step was going to be the illustrations. And as Jeannie said, that turned out to be an incredible challenge, more than we ever imagined it would.

JEANNE: Just how many times we said freckles on his nose and it came back. No freckles on his nose. Didn’t even look like Hershey. But then we finally found Isaac. Kids book art. Is that what it is?

ERIK: Yeah, his name is Isaac Carson, and he’s, uh, he has a fledgling kids illustration agency called Kids Book Art.com. He just started it as part of our process. And before Isaac, though, we had gone through four illustrators through Fiverr in a period of a good two months or longer and spent a fair amount of money in the process, too, and just could not get them to to come up with the Hershey, you know, vision that we wanted to see. And fortunately, this illustrator, Isaac, was great.

JIM: So that was the first thought I had when you mentioned going through different illustrators, you mentioned you found them on Fiverr, but they didn’t jive, but you still had to pay for those. So you get initial drawings, you go back and forth and then finally cut the cord before.

ERIK: Well, you’re doing you don’t I mean, there’s there are some safeguards in Fiverr where you’re not happy with the work that you don’t necessarily have to pay for it. So it all depends on on how that process goes.

JIM: Clearly, Isaac finally dialed it in. The illustrations are incredible. And you mentioned coming up with the manuscript first. So in the process you came up with the storyline, you found an editor, you dialed that in, you found the illustrator and then compiling the book. Did the illustrator do the design as well or did you guys some do.

ERIK: I actually came up with the cover design scenario in the format and then. He fleshed it out in terms of the actual artwork for the cover, and then he gave us all of the finished illustrations. Some illustrators will also do the book formatting as well, and some don’t. He did not. So we actually, for this being our first one and not knowing what we were doing, we gave the whole project back to the editor who also did book formatting using Kindle Direct Publishing and Amazon, and which is what we decided we wanted to use KDP. So we let her do the formatting part of it, and we learned that process with her along the way.

JEANNE: Yeah, the second book will be a little easier. Yeah.

JIM: So speaking of KDP, it looks like it’s only available on Amazon. Why did you choose to go that route?

ERIK: That was a hard decision too because yeah, you can choose to be the exclusive with Amazon and therefore get a higher royalty rate through them. Right. Or be non-exclusive and get an even smaller minuscule royalty rate. And for our first book, we figured, all right, let’s just try to keep it simple. We’ll stick with Amazon, we’ll get the higher royalty rate and we’ll see how that goes. So that’s why we chose to do that. We were also surprised in the process of how little money we actually make. Yeah. Yeah. Like is this.

JEANNE: Even worth it.

ERIK: It was just this little tiny percentage of the retail price. So that was eye opening. Yeah, yeah. With the next books though, I think we are going to open it up so that we’re on more platforms.

JIM: So in retrospect, we originally published Beamdog, our first memoir book through KDP and Ingramspark, because I wanted bookstores to be able to carry it because most bookstores don’t order off Amazon Ingramspark is where all bookstores go. But looking at the numbers coming through Ingramspark, I might as well choose just to go on Amazon because you also get through KDP, you get access to additional marketing opportunities, you can do their sales, you can do the free e-book, you know, sale or the pre-sales and that sort of thing. So that is definitely something to consider for new first time Self-publishers. What I’ve also found is that even though we do sell direct and we have a small inventory, paper books, often people still go to Amazon. It’s just where everyone shops. So we will even offer a coupon codes, free shipping, but people will still go through to Amazon where we’ll make a couple bucks instead of, you know, half the price of the book. So it is something to consider for anyone looking into it. Let’s talk about launching the book. So you’ve got this all done. You’ve got a launch date coming up on Amazon. Did you do any sort of pre promotion or advanced reader copies to get reviews? What did your launch look like?

ERIK: Again, it was so new to us, but what we relied on primarily was our following and social media right between the Facebook groups. And we created a Facebook page for Hershey. And he has his own website now as well. So as we were writing the book, we started putting teasers out there and letting people know that we were doing it. We share.

JEANNE: Pretty soon it’s on its way, you know, things like that.

ERIK: Generating some excitement and some interest. That way. We’d share some of the early illustrations as well, which I think helped get people kind of excited about the process and kind of develop more of our social media contacts as well, for when the book was actually published, so that we could get a little bit more exposure with that also, and I think that worked pretty well for us to get started. You know, one of the things I wish we had done, if you know, hindsight being the best site obviously is I wish we had started Hershey’s own presence on social media when we first hit the road three and a half years ago. Yeah. You know, if we had started his own blog and his own website from day one, we’d have an exponentially larger following than we have now. And that would have certainly helped with promoting the book, too. But we didn’t know at the time.

JIM: Yeah, but you were already sharing his adventures and clearly growing a presence, so how would that differ? You mean actually an established website for him or.

ERIK: Yeah, an established website for him, his own blog. I mean, just because Hershey gained his, I guess, following, if you will, kind of secondarily, through my own posting, my own personal posting and our personal posting, and I think we could have done even better if he was his own brand or his own entity a long time ago, if you will.

JEANNE: But you live and you learn, you live and you learn.

JIM: So tell me, what would you guys have done differently in this process?

ERIK: We definitely would have started a little earlier, because the whole thing took a lot longer than we imagined it would, so we definitely would have started earlier. And as I said, just before we would have started Hershey PUP’s own presence through his own website and his own Facebook page much sooner, like from day one of our journeys, if we had only known. But using social media the way we did, it worked well, I think to to launch the book. We’re blessed that we have a number of friends out there who are have some good size, you know, groups like Jeremy and Stephanie, the RV Atlas, and Mike and Jennifer Wenland of RV lifestyle. You know, they promoted they actually brought us on their podcast. They put a post for us for Hershey’s book, and that was certainly helpful a lot. And Mark and Julie Bennett from RV love as well, have helped us a lot in promoting Hershey’s book too. So that’s been pretty cool. We’ve also been and here’s where I was mentioned to Jim. About how sometimes you just got to go out there and you got to ask. I actually have a saying I, like you have to ask to get, so you have to ask to get.

ERIK: So I did reach out to a number of places to do like book reviews on Hershey’s book. And so Fmca family. Irving Magazine just had a really nice write up on it in their most recent issue, and Escapist Magazine is going to be coming out with a nice write up in their next issue as well. So those kind of things have certainly helped. We also got into a kind of a fun little collaboration is that some folks up in Michigan, Allegan, Michigan, Beyond Bones Dog Treats actually reached out to us and asked if we’d like to kind of work with them to promote their product. It’s pretty cool. They’re actually a subset of the Arc nonprofit organization up there in Allegan, Michigan, and they employ 26 folks with developmental disabilities and creating these dog treats and packaging and shipping them. And so we’ve been working with them, promoting their product. And that’s our first retail opportunity that they’re carrying. Hershey Pups book in their retail store up there in Michigan. So that’s been pretty fun.

JIM: So one thing I learned when we published our book is that once it’s published, the marketing can be just as hard, if not harder, than the publishing of the book. Have you guys learned the same thing, and what are you guys doing to continue the momentum you have behind Hershey and get this marketing going on to continue sales of the book?

ERIK: Yeah, we’ve definitely found that as well. You know, collaborating with different people out there in social media has certainly helped. As I mentioned before, being able to be on podcasts and being interviewed, that’s been great. We’ve been reaching out to different outlets to introduce Hershey’s book and see if they’re willing to take it on to promote it. Just an example of and I’m sure you guys have found this, too, of just looking for opportunities. When we’re camp hosting down in Vero Beach, the local newspaper, Vero Beach News, acts as a weekly section there about pets. And so I reached out to them and told them about Hershey Pup, and they were excited about that. And the person came out to our campground and interviewed us and interviewed Hershey. And he had a great little write up in the local newspaper there. So any of those kind of little opportunities to promote where we’re looking to do.

JIM: Our paths have crossed in previous lives here at some point, because our first year on the road, we were we’re camping in Vero Beach at an organic farm, and the local paper there did a little story about our three legged dog working on the farm long before we ever dreamed of turning it into a book. So we’ve got a lot of correlations going on here, but do you have any tips for first time publishers having been through this?

ERIK: Well, yeah, I think we do. And I did want to mention too, because I realized I didn’t mention this, but we’ve also done Facebook ads, Facebook and Instagram ads. So sponsored ads. So that was an interesting process learning how to do that and the mechanics of that I’m not sure exactly how successful they were for us. I know they have helped sell some books. I think we just have to learn more about how to do the analytics and the metrics and make those work better for us. But but that’s another important piece of it.

JIM: I think that can get tricky in a quick way to burn through your budget. If you really got to dial in those metrics there. We gave up on that long ago.

ERIK: Yeah. So, um, yeah, in terms of tips, you know, again, I think people are interested in doing it would be to, to start sooner rather than later, you know, if you get that idea and just dive in and start doing it. Certainly Google and YouTube, there’s a lot of resources out there that can help folks like us just to learn about the process and what’s available. And I would say also just to seek out professionals, seek out people who have done it already. So maybe people you know who are are authors and have been through the process and kind of pick their brains as well. But then also not to be afraid to hire folks like we did a professional children’s book editor that was incredibly helpful for us. And it wasn’t very much cost either.

JEANNE: Yeah, it wasn’t too bad.

ERIK: Those type of things, I think can help get people off to a good start.

JIM: It is definitely important to focus on what you do best.

ERIK: Yeah, and I would say too, there’s a lot of groups out there like Facebook groups, some that are specific to children’s authors and children’s literature. So joining those groups can be great for learning as well, because most of those people are just like with our RVing groups are very helpful when it comes to asking questions and giving guidance.

JEANNE: Did we tell the story about the kids, the classroom?

ERIK: No, you could mention it.

JEANNE: Yeah. Tell me, a classroom in Michigan. The teacher got a book and she read it to the classroom. And they just happened to be learning about the New England states. Just happened to be. And you know, what type of birds and stuff. So she read it to the class and asked if we could, um, we decided to do a zoom with the class and it was so much fun. Those kids had so many questions for us, so we zoomed the class that met Hershey on the zoom. I just could not believe how interested they were when she said, does anyone have questions? Every single child had their hand up and I was like, that was the most fun that I have had since this whole entire book situation. We were hoping other classrooms would do it, but it just happened to be that one. But it was just so much fun. That is.

ERIK: Something that we’re going to be looking at doing more of getting involved with schools and classrooms.

JEANNE: Maybe library.

ERIK: Libraries to do readings and things like that, which are both fun for us. But it will also be a way to promote the book too, as part of other tips we have and ideas that we have for promotion is Hershey has his own, uh, little book card. So it’s basically the cover of the book and a little 4×4 card. And the back of it has information about the book. Basically, it’s the description that’s on Amazon and a QR code that takes it right to his book listing. And Hershey has his own little business card on the same format, which takes people to, um, his official website and also to the book listing on Amazon. So obviously, we hand those things out whenever we have an opportunity as well.

JIM: Yeah, and it’s all cohesive branding there. And people can obviously recognize that book when they see it. But I’m especially intrigued by the relationship marketing you’re doing there with schools and or libraries to do live, you know, basically book readings or visits and kind of, um, book groups that you could do via zoom on the road. So that comes back to the relationship marketing, which we just had an episode on recently. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes you guys mentioned kind of branching out. What’s next for you too?

ERIK: Well, we’ve actually designed The Hershey Book to be a series, so we want to have about a five book series. So we’re partially through book number two manuscript and getting ready to send that to an editor and also the illustrator. And then we’ll work on the rest of the Hershey Pup books. I’m actually working on my own book as well. Rv related on on tips and strategies based on our full time RVing experiences. So we’re going to be doing that. We opened up a zazzle.com print on demand shop for Hershey, and he’s going to have his own Amazon affiliate store soon as well. So we’re hoping to just kind of have a whole bunch of little income streams that May 1st day add up to a little bit more than just a little bit. Yeah.

JEANNE: Did you mean for the book or did you mean for us in general?

JIM: I think you covered it there with, um, kind of what your plans are next and, and where you’re going with all this. And a lot of it has to do with Hershey. So where’s the best place listeners can connect and learn more?

ERIK: Well, we don’t have our own blog or website because we just decided not to do that when we first started launching. So pretty much all of our journey has been posted up under my direct Facebook page. And that’s Eric Eric Anderson with a Soen .378. So it’s Eric Anderson .378 on Facebook. And then of course we do have Hershey’s own web page, which has a lot of information on it there. And that’s WW dot Hershey Pup Adventures.

JIM: Com awesome. Thank you guys both for joining me and best wishes for Hershey’s Adventures.

JEANNE: Thank you.

ERIK: Thanks, Jim. This has been fun.

JIM: How fun. Eric and Jean have such a similar story as Renee and I. We live our lives around our dogs, and we’ve all learned a thing or two about self-publishing our own books. One takeaway is to focus on what you do best and seek professional help for the rest.

Do you have a book in you? Need to make some connections with an editor or illustrator? Give a shout out in the RV Entrepreneur Facebook group to see what type of collaborations you come up with, and if you have an idea for a future episode or feedback on this one, drop us a line at the RV Entrepreneur.com slash contact. Until next time, happy travels and like Hershey Pup, enjoy the adventures wherever they take you.

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The RV Entrepreneur is presented by RV Life – Tools that Make Camping Simple
https://rvlife.com

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Jim Nelson

Jim and his wife Rene have been full-time RVing since first hitting the road in 2007. They share their story and tips for supporting your nomadic lifestyle @LiveWorkDream and in their book, Income Anywhere! Jim joined the RVE Podcast team as host and website admin in 2023.