An Amazing Writing Breakthrough. She is About to Make $100,000.
This is a story (interview) how one woman paid her dues and followed her dreams by touching her fingertips to the keyboard. She went from an assistant teacher to a full time writer. She was as inventive as she was determined. And, by golly, she did it.
Remember, success leaves clues. It’s important to take notes how she went about creating her success and incorporate what works for you. Find the clues that she’s presenting to you all on a silver platter. Most importantly, if you want to be a successful writer, I’m learning that you need to get out of your comfort zone and take that leap, like she did.
This is her story…
Her name is Shaunta Grimes, founder of Ninja Writers, one of the most successful online writing schools around and one of the best Facebook Writing groups I’ve ever been involved with. Her school features courses on developing and testing story ideas, plotting workshops, readying you to write your manuscript, a powerful productivity program, and more.
Welcome, Shaunta Grimes.
Brandon Ellis: You were a teacher before you became a full time writer?
Shaunta Grimes: I was a teacher’s assistant, first in a special needs classroom at a high school and then in a Kindergarten autism room.
I loved the kids and I love teaching in general. The job was super low paying — my son makes more working at Wal-Mart — and unfortunately at the high school I worked under a teacher who made my job pretty miserable.
The thing is that I’m a natural teacher. I love it. I’m enjoying teaching on my own terms, through Ninja Writers, way more. I’m also making a living wage, which is wonderful.
BE: What was the final straw? What pushed you forward to make that leap to becoming a full time author/writer/writing entrepreneur?
SH: The final straw was working under that high school teacher. It was a toxic situation and I realized that I needed to do something different. I wanted to write another novel, hoping to sell it and make an advance that would give me the chance to quit and regroup.
I realized that the thing that I was missing the first time I tried traditional publishing was my own audience. So I decided to try to build an email list. That’s how Ninja Writers started.
I started my list with zero on February 1, 2016.
My first goal was 50 people by March 1, but when that date rolled around I had 800.
BE: Why did you think you needed an email list?
SG: My first two books were published by an imprint of Penguin in 2013 and 2014. They got good reviews, but didn’t have strong sales. I’d done a lot of research about blogging, which is where I learned about email lists, and I realized that an email list in 2013 would have been a big help.
BE: A large, legitimate email list can be a major contributor to an author’s success. Since the email list was starting to build, and it grew faster than you planned, you needed to offer your subscribers something. You offered them a course, correct?
SG: I’d had an idea for a year-long novel writing course for a long time. I decided to just bite the bullet and offer it. I made $40,000, which was more than enough for me to quit my job when school let out in June.
BE: When did you advertise it?
SG: I launched the class in March 2016. Funny story: I sent out the email, then went to a movie. While I was at the movie, I chickened out and I was going to go home and take it back, but by the time I got out of the movie, two people had bought it!
I was over the moon. And terrified. I hadn’t written the class yet, so I had a ton of work in front of me, and I was still working my full time job.
BE: Exactly how did you advertise it?
SG: I advertised to my list, via emails. I built my list with Facebook ads. I had a little loop that I used: I created a little product I could sell in my thank you page, after someone joined my list, for $7. I used the money I made from that to pay for ads.
I created a sales page on Gumroad. The first iteration of the class was just a drip email series on ConvertKit.
A long time before, I’d created a weekly planner for writers. I usually sell it for $20. I gave a coupon in my thank you page that made it $7.
BE: I’ve never heard of Gumroad. Can you explain what it is?
SG: It’s a place where you can sell digital products. Like a shopping cart, I guess. I’m not actually sure how to describe it. You can see it at www.gumroad.com. It’s like a storefront.
BE: Back to email lists. Did you take any list building courses? If so, which ones?
SG: I did. I took Bryan Harris’s Rapid List Builder course. Of all the things I did that first year, that was the best.
It just takes you step by step through a bunch of ways of building an email list.
BE: Once you started building your list, you came up with your Ninja Writers idea. Why “Ninja Writers” and what happened next?
SG: I had a FB group by then and I asked them to help me come up with a name for us. I wanted something that felt like a real community. Ninja Writers came from that.
It has just kept growing. I did a limited launch in the summer and another full launch in the fall. I’ve moved toward a membership community lately, which is doing well.
BE: What do you provide to your Ninja Writers?
SG: I hope I provide inspiration and tools to help them do the only thing that really matters if they want to be writers: finish their manuscripts.
I truly believe that their stories matter.
A good story, well told, can change the world. I think it’s the only thing that ever really has.
Now that my community is a year old, recently some members have had some awesome things happen. Three have signed with literary agents in the last couple of weeks, for instance. Many have finished their books and self-published them.
BE: You’ve been traditionally published, so you could help your Ninja Writers in that process, such as getting literary agents. And, you also know the Indie/Self Publishing world regarding building an audience and keeping your audience entertained through a newsletter. If you could put all of this together and come up with the most important aspect of growing as an author/writer, what would that be?
SG: There are two things.
1) Finish your manuscript.
2) Build an email list.
BE: Okay, so you went from an assistant teacher to a full time writing coach, writing entrepreneur, and you continue to write fiction. Can you tell us how much money you are now earning from your courses?
I made about $80,000 in 2016 and I’m on track to make about $100,000 in 2017.
A Novel Idea is launching again in May.
You can link to the course in this post. (Here it is: Ninja Writer’s Teachable School)
And, I have this productivity packet I call my Secret Weapon.
BE: What is the productivity packet?
SG: I call it my secret weapon — it’s a set of productivity tools
I would advertise an opt-in on Facebook, something free that I thought writers would like or could use — a printable calendar and reward system for daily writing, a log for daily writing, a system for making monthly and weekly goals.
BE: Do you have any tips for us writers?
SG: Yes! Set a teeny, tiny goal for yourself — one that’s harder to skip than it is to just do it. For me, that’s writing 10 minutes a day. And just do it. Consistency is the best thing you can do for yourself.
BE: Last question. If you could tell someone like me, someone who wants to be a best-selling author, someone who wants to make a living writing full time, what would that message be?
SG: I’d tell you that there’s a whole vast world between the people at the very top and the people who don’t even put themselves out there. There are hundreds, even thousands, of writers who make a good living as mid-list Indie authors.
I think a writer often makes the mistake of comparing themselves to the very few people who are at the very tip top of the business. That’s like wanting to be an entrepreneur and feeling like a failure if you’re not the next Bill Gates.
BE: Thank you, Shaunta Grimes.
Interested in Shaunta’s Ninja Writers courses? Check them out. Click on this link → Ninja Writer’s Teachable School. You’ll see her free and paid courses. You’ll love them.
A little backstory: I first met Shaunta at Tim Grahl’s Best Seller Summit in Nashville Tennessee. It took place on October of 2016, and is an annual event. I recommend taking the time and finding a way to get to the Best Seller Summit. It will give an amazing lift to your writing career.
And, more about Shaunta.
Almost everything Shaunta thinks up is extremely inventive and effective. She’s not afraid to go after her dreams to further her writing career, which seems to always consist of helping others in some way.
She spends a lot of time helping out authors, creating courses to help an author set their own path and find their way to success. She truly has an imaginative mind, is an incredible writer, and seems to get more done than any writer I’ve ever met. She’s an awesome force in the world, here to bring more light to everyone.
If you take her courses, join her facebook group — Ninja Writers — then you’ll be truly grateful that you did.
If you haven’t yet, take a gander at a Ninja Writer’s Teachable School.
Much Love,
Brandon Ellis
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