Editing With Grammarly And AutoCrit

0:04

What happened was I finished it and I rewrote it a couple times by myself. I used Grammarly at first, you know, like that really helped. But then I put it through what's called autocrit and it's software. What it does is you put your book in there and it'll tell you, like, how many times are you using the word always or like or anyway or moreover? And it'll say, you've got 85 times you say always. You need to take out 45.

Meet Jessica Dannell And Her Journey

0:38

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tines, and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books, and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I have today with me Jessica Dannell, who's the bold and honest voice behind the podcast Just Saying. She's an entrepreneur, author, and storyteller who built a million-dollar preschool business from her living room before pivoting to focus on family and writing. Jessica is also the author of Bucket List from A Redneck Girl, where she shares her journey through motherhood, resilience, and re-interesting. Wow. Jessica or Jess. So nice to have you on the podcast. I, of course, have a lot of questions to

Scaling A Home Daycare By Demand

1:39

ask. And I think the first one is so you built this business from your living room and then you pivoted to writing, right? So first, how did you manage to do to build a million-dollar business from your living room? What's your secret? I've been trying to build a business for years. I have not reached a million-dollar mark. Not yet. I'll get there, but how how did you do it? So I start, it's funny, it's because I started a d family daycare, and it was word of mouth. I just kept getting a lot of clients, and so I built onto the house with its own little playroom and it had its own entrance and bathroom. And so then I went to a large family daycare, had two staff members, and then again, I mean, people wanted my daycare. Like it was just so many people. So I went to expand my business to a church and leased a building at a church, and I had 42 students, and I had a total of eight staff members between the two schools. And then I was doing really good. I just was selling it. I'm just really good at like selling my program. And it was a good program. There was education involved. It wasn't just a preschool for fun. It was a preschool where they were gonna be have school readiness, and that's how we sold it. And I had a great staff. I mean, you gotta, you know, you gotta lay it down for the girls that are doing the work.

SBA Loan And Pre-Selling The Dream

3:00

So then I was approached by a neighbor, a gentleman that I watched, um, his daughter at the family daycare, and he had a commercial property, and the back part of the property was more like a triangle. And he's like, I don't know what to put back there, but I think the preschool would be great. You'd have a 10,000 square foot building and a 30,000 square foot play yard. And I didn't know anything about business, you know, only the business I had been running. So, and I didn't have an education at the time. So I Googled how to do a business plan and I secured an SBA loan, which is a small business association loan for $700,000. And there we're off the races. And so I pre-sold the school. Well, it was a dirt lot. I was like, here's where the preschool room's gonna be, and here's the office, and here's the dramatic playroom, and we're going to have play structures with the little squishy stuff underneath so the kids don't hurt themselves when they fall down. And and I'm spending a lot of money on toys, and I would bring out the magazine that I'm using. It was called Lakeshore, and you could open up Lakeshore and it looked just like what my school was gonna look like and what it did look like. And so I pre-sold 140 families, and on day one, I opened the door with 140 students, and I had 25 staff members, a cook, a van driver, just everything. And it was crazy. And if so, for the first year, we we billed a million bucks, and so we were doing great, but it did open now. See, I had run the family daycare since 03, and then in like 2008 was when the school, the big school opened. So we we grew fast. And that I could when the big school opened, I closed the one at the church and the family daycare, obviously, because I had all the room to spare at the big building.

Recession Pressure And A Family Crisis

4:46

But then back then, 2008, is when the economy went into the crapper, you know. So everybody was losing their jobs, but I I was doing okay for the first, you know, 2009, 2010 was coming around. I was doing okay, but then all of a sudden everybody started losing their jobs. So we went at the highest uh 188 students to 88 students, and I was injecting money into the school. At the time I'd just given birth to my daughter, she was born with tetrology of philos and needed open heart surgery. And so I had to attend to her for five months before her surgery date to make sure she didn't die. Literally, the doctor said, Don't leave her side. Like, so and then at the time, the the landowner, my this landlord that I had wanted to buy the business and said, because I think you saw, you know, I was weak at the time because I was struggling because we were struggling with the building itself at the time was $17,000 lease payment. It was pretty high. And so I was like, okay, you know, I was postpartum, I was, I was really, there was a lot going on. And I found out, you know, my son had Asperger's at the time, which is right all at the same time, all this stuff was happening. And had I known what I know now about business, and I'm much educated, I'm more educated now. I'm much educated, much educated. I went and got a you know, a master's degree, so I do know a lot more now than I did then. I probably wouldn't have sold it to him, but I did. And he ended up not paying me what he was supposed to and what the agreement was. And I we were in mediation for a long time. It was just a hot mess. But Piper did, you know, she came through the operation with flying colors, it was a really good thing. And the business, I, you know, transferred it to him and whatever. I still can't drive by that school without like getting sick to my stomach because I built it. He's still using my contracts and policies and and everything that I did, you know, to build it. He's still using it, so whatever. The good news is that I I do look at it as a success because it is a successful business. It's just not in my name. You know, it's it's the largest preschool in our in Bakersfield where I live, and it is successful and it runs like it's supposed to. We just went through hard times in the beginning, and I just didn't know business very well at the time, but I learned my lessons. But

School, Media Careers, And New Skills

7:09

at the time, you know, so then after that, my husband's like, Well, what are you gonna do? And so I I did photography for a little while. I got really good at editing and videography and some other things. And so it was like just, you know, I think planting the seeds for things to come. And then he said, get a job. My husband's like, get a job or go to work or go to school. I was like, school, please. So I went to school, got my bachelor's degree in business administration and marketing, and then picked up a job at a local TV station. And that's what I've been doing for eight years. And then COVID hit, of course, made me a remote person, which turned I loved it. I found out that I loved it. And so I wanted to stay remote. But during that time, I went and got my master's degree uh in project management and marketing, and I just had a lot of downtime, you know, and then I got another job, stayed with the job in the TV, you know, it I still work for the TV station, but I got a job in radio. So I was like, I have broadcast media on both sides of this thing. So I do do two jobs at once. One is in radio and one is in TV, and they don't really know about each other. I mean, then maybe now they know if they hear the podcast. My husband says I share too much, but whatever. Okay. So um, so I do do both, and then I still found downtime after I got adjusted to having both of them. And I do, you know, during political season it gets a little hard because I do all the uh filing for the FCC for my TV station. So it's a lot of work, but I still found downtime.

Turning Life Stories Into A Memoir

8:45

And I thought, you know, I tell people all the time, I wear my personality on my sleeves, but I wear my I I carry all of my stories in my back pocket and I always share them with people all the time. And I would get this a lot. Oh my gosh, you should write a book. Like it's so crazy, all the stories that you have. And um, like I'm I'm telling you my journey from like the preschool, and it's I'm telling you very shortened how things are, but there was a lot of in-between. So I decided to sit down and write my story, and I thought, if anything, I'm just gonna write it for my kids. You know, like I'm gonna write it so my kids can see mommy's journey from when she was little until now. Now, let me just say, I have been through a very just a slew of things, and I'm just gonna list them off briefly, okay? So I've never done drugs my whole entire life, okay? But my parents thought I was on drugs in high school and they put me in a drug rehab. They dropped me in a drug rehab because they thought I was on drugs. And so there was a lot that goes with that story. And of course, the drug test came back, said I was not on drugs, and they pulled me out, but there is a there's a lot that goes to that story. So I start my book off there, but then I actually go chronologically, kind of, you know. I had a lazy eye when I was little, I, you know, kind of like Forrest Whitaker. I don't know if you've ever seen him, he's, you know, his eyes look a little different. Well, I grew up like that, and I always didn't feel pretty, you know, and I had two eye surgeries when I was little, and I remember the whole thing. And so I talk about, you know, what it was like to be at that age and the things that I was thinking and what I did in the hospital room and some crazy things. Just some things that like will kind of set the stage for kind, you know, like where I was mentally growing up. My dad, my mom, I have they were, you know, I came from a married household, still mom and dad living at home to, you know. But I also had siblings. I had an older sister, brother, and a younger sister, so there were four of us, but none of them were disciplined like me. I have a chapter called The Belt, the hand, or the hanger, because I was I was very dis I was disciplined harshly. Out of all the children, I was the only one that really got beaten with a belt or hand or hanger, whatever it was. And so I talk about that. And even today, my mom goes, yeah, I don't know why the other kids didn't get disciplined like that. She goes, I don't know. She goes, maybe they just didn't get, you know, just weren't mischievous, you know, mischievous like I was, you know, because I was. I think that if I was labeled today, I'd probably have a DHD or some kind of ism behind me. I don't know. But at the time, you know, they were trying to break my spirit, and there was a lot of that going on when I was younger. Didn't happen though. I went to a private school. I talk about being with the nuns. They didn't like me either. I got smacked across the face a lot. And I talk about the transition from a private school to a public school and what was that, you know, all the things that go with that and what you know, the journey that it took me on, and how high school for me was like the best time of my life, and I wouldn't change a thing. And can't and in fact, that's what I called that chapter. But then I go on to

Surviving A High School Shooting

11:52

more things. My high school was the first high school that had a high school shooting in America, pretty much, 1992. Oh wow. Which school? Yeah. Lyndhurst High School, 1992. Eric Houston, which we all knew him. He went to school with us in like the previous years. He came back to the school and killed uh one of our teachers and three of our friends. So he killed four people. He shot nine others, brutally shot. We're talking shoulders blown off. Brutally shot nine others and held like 80 kids hostage for about 12 hours. So I talk about that in the book and where I was and what was happening, and all and I, you know, I I also expressed the sense of our community, how close we were. Very, very close. The neighborhood we had was called Park Circle because it was like these little circles, like three circles or four circles. Which city was that? Well, we grew it's funny because Marysville, Yuba City is the big towns, and our little area was Linda, and all of Hurst, all of Hurst, O-L-I-V-E-R-H-U-R-S-T was the high school. And Linda's where we lived in Park Circle, but it's very small. What's this? Oh, California. Oh, California. Okay. And so that this is why I, you know, the the California. This is why it's called Redneck, because I'm from a small farming town north of Sacramento, and it's very tiny, lots of lots of orchards, and that's just we were considered low-income, low trashy kind of people, even though we weren't. But we were, you know, we were the redheaded stepchild of the neighbor of the area because Marysville, Uba City was the big city, and our little area was like, oh, that's them. You know, they had a flood in 96, oh gross, that's them, you know, kind of thing. And so we were always looked as the less than, you know, area. And so that's why I'm like, I didn't want to call myself white trash, because that's not what I am. And in fact, it's funny, my husband, he grew up very poor, poorer than me. And I didn't grow up poor. Like I grew up middle class, is what I thought. I never felt poor growing up. And in fact, he goes, Reading your book, you're you were loaded because he is so poor. He's like, Your mom went, your mom got hurt in a skiing accident. Like, we couldn't even afford to go skiing. Like, you know, like, or he's or he's like, Your mom worked at a country club. And I'm like, Yes, but it it wasn't like we were at the country club. She worked there, you know what I mean? But he was like, Oh, give me a break. You guys had money. And I'm like, Oh, like I did not have money, let me tell you. Like, we were we were poor because you know, that's just how we were growing up. You didn't feel you didn't have a lot back then, and you didn't need a lot back in the 70s and 80s. It wasn't like now, like, everybody's gotta have so much and your garages are full of junk, and you know what I mean? Like, everyone has to have a storage unit. And but back then it was simpler times. And in fact, throughout the book, I leave little Easter eggs about the time and the setting. Like, I talk about my yellow Famica kitchen, you know, like everything was yellow, the sink, the dishwasher, the refrigerator, and in fact, the garbage disposal. When I said that, he goes, Oh yeah. Anybody with a garbage disposal was or not garbage disposal, he said, was a trash compactor. He goes, anybody with a trash compactor that matched the refrigerator was considered rich, and my book is what he's owing. But uh, so everything, so I talk about little things like Avon and all the things that you know we had growing up at during that time. And so you'll see little bits of that throughout the whole thing. And very funny book. I try to make uh lots of it is very funny, and uh you'll laugh most of the way through. You'll cry during the chapter about the high school. There's no way you cannot not cry, but I cried, writing it and rewriting it and reading it over and over. I cried every time. So I don't know, maybe because it hit me a little bit closer, but it was a chapter that just affected me a lot. But then I met my husband in Palm Springs, and we worked, he was a bartender going to school for to be a physical therapist, is what he does now. But he was going to school, and I was a waitress, and that's where we met. We met in a bar. It's so funny. But we actually worked in it. We didn't like we didn't attend it. And we got married, we were together three years, then got married. It's been 28 years altogether since then. But I became a stepmom when I married him, and being a stepparent is a lot of work. Anybody out there? Woo! Dealing with a bio mom that is little cuckoo, that's what we had to do, and it was hard work. We were in, I was actually in labor in court with my first kid because she would not let us have a continuance. And I went into labor and then and she's like, I don't believe her. So my husband had to stay, and I was four hours, my we lived four hours away. So he had to stay and finish, and he made it just 20 minutes before our son was born. I sure as I mean I got I delivered on my due date. Like, I don't know. I'm always on time, just put just saying. Oh wow. So how how did you publish the book? What was your publishing together? I'll get to that. Hold on. I wanted to say a few other things. Yes, sir. So my book, there I have some it was published through, okay. First of all, I guess I can get to I guess I can get to that question.

Hybrid Publishing Wins And Frustrations

17:12

What happened was I finished it and I rewrote it a couple times by myself. I used Grammarly at first, you know, like that really helped. And but then I put it through what's called autocrit. It's a software. It's A-U-T-O-C-R-I-T, autocrit. And it's a software. And what it does is you put your book in there and it'll tell you like, how many times are you using the word always or like or anyway or moreover? And it'll say, you've got 85 times you say always. You need to take out 45, you know. And it's the other and uh what's left will be appropriate. And then it gives you alternative words to replace with that. And so then you just have to go. I mean, it takes it painstakingly because you'll you'll find out you use a word more often than you really realized. And yeah, I used grammarly first, and then this auto crit really, really, really, really helped me. And in fact, my book was darn near perfect. So then I shopped it to, I wanted something that was like a hybrid, but like actually, I didn't want to. I always felt like going to one of those publishers, you know, the traditional publishers, would I wouldn't get accepted. Like I didn't know, like, I didn't have an agent. I didn't want to go that route with an agent behind me. And so I just submitted to a few places and Christian faith publishing said they were interested. And they are more like a hybrid. I don't know if you call it a hybrid, but to me, I I call it that because you do put money into it, but they do all the work, and then you get, you know, you split it, doesn't not necessarily split the proceeds because they do take a lot, but you get a percentage, it's a little higher than most, but not as not that much. And when they got the draft, they said, wow, this is actually written really good. And so it made me feel good that I didn't actually have but a very short little bit of revisions. And a lot of it was just the dash that I use when I use M-dashes. They weren't really M-dashes, they were just like the dash. I guess I didn't, was it using the proper M-dash? Because I like to M-dash when I emphasize. I try not to use it too often, but it does do that. And so there was a lot of that, like not real grammar, but more like a structure sentence structure or whatever. And so that made made me feel real good. And then the process with them went very fast. It was took a year. Well, I mean fast enough, but took about a year. But here's what I'm gonna tell you not to knock them, but continuity of service between my representative that was taking care of me and what was actually happening with my book wasn't great. We I went through like two or three people in the beginning, and then another couple, two people. So they had a turnaround, you know, staff turnaround. And my book went, it's this true story. So my husband makes a we make a pretty, you know, we we make good money, but we have high taxes for whatever reason. Like we have a high tax bill every year. In fact, we just did our taxes and we're like, we still have $6,200, which is actually the lowest I've ever had that we have to pay in taxes. So I'm on the phone with the IRS lady and I'm talking to her, and I'm like, yeah, I just wrote a book and it's not out yet. And she goes, Oh, let me look it up. And so she she she Amazon Googled it or whatever, and she's oh yeah, it's right here on Amazon. And I sold the IRS lady told me my book was already on Amazon before I even knew my book was even out. I was so pissed. I was like, nah. She goes, Oh yeah, girl, it's right here, you know. And so, because I obviously I chat at people a lot, just like I'm talking with you. So I chat at people all the time. So we're talking. And then I go, Yeah, I just did a book and I have a podcast and blah, blah, blah. And so she's like, Well, I'll definitely look you up. She goes, and she was typing it in while we were talking. She goes, That's right here on Amazon. So I was messaged them, I'm like, this was out in June. This is July 3rd or whatever I'm talking, and it was out in June, and I didn't even know. So it just that ticked me off. So the continuity of like care wasn't great. And and then there was other issues that I've run into. Like another one that I didn't like about this is obviously I can talk. So obviously, when I I would want somebody to read my book, I would want it to be like me, how I talk, you know, and with inflection and you know, emphasis. And so I could not speak for my audiobook. They wouldn't allow it. So I had to pick between some like the few the f five or ten people they gave me. And I tried to do the one that best suited me, you know, sounded more like how I would maybe do it. So that kind of not ticked me off, but like rubbed me the wrong way. I was like, people want to hear me say it. The book because it's how I literally it's how I talk, is how I wrote the dang thing. And so that wasn't all the best that I so I didn't really like that. And there's not a lot of money to be made in this part in the memoir business, let me just say. So it's not that I did it for the money, but I thought, how am I supposed to get my book out there, right? And

Podcasting As Book Marketing Strategy

22:22

so I just decided that I'm gonna learn how to do, just like I did my business plan where I didn't know how to do it, I figured out I was gonna teach myself how to be a podcaster. So I Googled and I YouTube it, and I I met uh the what is his name? Pat Flynn is out there. Okay, so I listened to a lot of him. He was very helpful, that man. And I would write down, I took lots and lots of notes of the different software that you can go out and get and the different, you know, hosts and all the different things, and and also the equipment. And then I th and I researched how much it was gonna be and can I afford it now, or do I have to wait for two paychecks and all of that? And I'm really good at videography and and editing and all the things that I've learned in the past life of photography. Also, by the way, in high school, it's funny how my parents put me in a drug rehab, right? In Haskell, I did I was the on track basketball and cross-country team. I was the school photographer, I took pictures for the yearbook, I was on the yearbook staff, and I wrote for the the school newspaper, and I wrote for our town newspaper often. So I was, and I had it, I had a C or better because you had to have a C or better to do any of these things. So I just skated by with, you know, whatever you had to to just get through. But yet still my parents thought I was on drugs, like, you know. So I mean, I don't know how much more of an achiever I could have been, you know, for them to not want to throw me in a drug rehab, but anywho. And it wasn't like I, it wasn't like I was wearing goth colors and like my I had nose rings and my fingernails were black. No, no, I dressed like a, you know, I dressed in prom clothes and all the different things you did, you know what I mean? Like I was a normal, normal high schooler with a Letterman jacket, you know. So in high school I did a lot of that as well, is what I'm saying, is I did a lot of journalism, a lot of writing. But I think my writing style got better during my when I got my master's degree because that's all I had to do was write a lot, like paper after paper. I had to, I had to shell out six-page paper within like a you know, a couple days. And I was just getting really good at being fast at it and um editing myself, and I got good at writing, and so now I have the writing bug. Not only did I write that memoir, but I'm starting to write so funny. I don't know, do you call them smut novels? Okay, so romance novels, right? So I actually have three count them, one, two, three, in draft. I'm on my last one, and I have like two chapters left. I'm at the very end. And so then I'm then I have the pro because they're all three related, they're like a series. So it's it's an ongoing story, and it ends on book three. And so they're all in draft, and I have to go back and rewrite that. No, how you do you rewrite, but you get them all. But I wrote them very fast. And just like I wrote my book, I sat down, it took me two months to write my memoir. I wrote these very quickly as well, and I just have been putting them off for a few months because I'm catching up on my podcast stuff, and and then I also have two jobs, like I said. So it's and I'm a wife and a mother of kids that are neurodivergent, so I've got a lot on my plate. Just saying. That's a lot. So, how are you gonna publish these novels after your experience with the memoir?

TikTok Workflow And Repurposed Clips

25:46

So I I think that you know, I'm on TikTok now. I just started in July, and so I I have like 15,000 followers, and I feel as though if I keep the momentum on Whoa, how I've been on TikTok for years and I have like a couple of hundred. But what how did you get there? I post one okay. So if you go to my TikTok, it's Jess Sang, I think. I don't know. Look me up, Jessica Donnell. Jess Sane with Jessica Donnell. And there's I post my social posts, I do one a day. I actually schedule them, you know, in advance so that they automatically post. What do you use for scheduling? I just if you go to like where you're gonna post them in TikTok, you can there's a button that says schedule, so you can schedule it for the, you know, like you do one today and then you can schedule one for tomorrow, and then schedule one for the day after that, and then so on and so forth. So then they they run automatically all week long. And so I do one social post a day, and then I put one a day on my LinkedIn, which is like 89, oh no, 9,000 now followers. So my LinkedIn, like I have 6,000 on my Facebook, and I do my TikToks, no, I mean my Instagram stinks. I have like 733. Like I really stink on Instagram, and then my ex account is just brand new too, so there's not that many on there. But I try to do one on every single social media, but you can't you can't pre-schedule on any of the others. Just TikTok will allow you, and YouTube will allow you to post in advance your so your little shorts. You know, they're like a minute long. What do you post about? So what I do is I take my podcast, um, like let's say we're let's say this was me hosting us, I would take a one-minute excerpt of something important that we talked about or funny or something neat, you know, interesting, and I would pull that off. Now, you know, Riverside does your magic clip. Yeah, your magic clips. So you can pull those out. I always make sure I look at them because sometimes I like to add more to the comments or the conversation that really will dive out the conversation a little bit better, or I'll t I'll reduce it a little bit. And then I put I use Canva, which is a the design, yeah. The design place, yeah. Yeah. So I use Canva and I'll do a little short on the like a 10 second big intro and 10 second outro, and I'll put like a a really cool little quote, and then I'll say, just saying, you know, like life is short, and I'll just saying, you know, and then and at the end I'll put like come find us or something about like you know, about where to find like my website, basically. But that's a lot of work, no? I mean no kidding. Like I told you all the things I got going on, writing, jobs, you know, husbands, kids, trying to travel on my, you know, just a lot happening. But how how do you keep yourself motivated and have the energy? Like for me, like I have three kids and I do this full time and I have clients and all of

Energy, Parenting, And Staying Motivated

28:52

that. Like by a certain time, like by three o'clock, like now in a bit I have to go pick up my son from school, and then there's a school activity, like I'm done. Like, I cannot do how how do you keep your your energy level high to do and the motivation as well? Coffee? No. I run on coffee and chaos, girl. No, no, I okay, so I start at six, I roll out of bed and I click on all my computers. I've got two screens here and two screens here and three laptops. And so it's like a huge hub. So I turn on everything like, oh, kind of like I'm an orchestra, or you know, orchestrator, voila. And I then I have to get my daughter ready for school, and she is done by about seven, ten is when she's done getting ready. And um, and then I'm lucky, her bus picks her up at our door. Like I said, she's got special needs, so she gets picked up right at the front, and I don't have to pick her up or drop her off, which does help because that is like a 45-minute ordeal. Trying to go to a school, hang out in traffic, sit there, get them in, try to get out of traffic without getting a ticket because you want to get the heck out of there, you know. You're wasting gas while you're sitting there with the air on because it's dang hot here in Bakersfield. So so I I can say that that is where I have a blessing, but I do start to like I am tired. And I I I am off work at four o'clock officially, and then I spend the next hour finishing up podcast stuff, and then and then I try to break away between five and five thirty if I can. I have to start dinner. Like, and then I and some nights it's Finn for yourself because mommy's dang tired. And some nights, you know, and then some nights we go to hockey because I get hockey tickets from my station. So, like this week it was Wednesday, tonight, and tomorrow. Like three nights of hockey is a lot, but it's fun. But it's like hockey night is like a whole nother thing, you know. Like there's a lot of planning for the kids, and I'm lucky my kids are older, 16 and 25, and uh they still they're still living. Those two are living at home. I have a 30, oh my lord, she's gonna be 33 in like 10 days, 12 days. How many kids do you have? Three. Okay, good. I have a stepdaughter, she's mine, but I have a stepdaughter, which I have to mark up, make sure I send her some money for her birthday. But I have a stepdaughter, I uh I have a son, and he's got Asperger's, and then I have a daughter, she's got intellectual disability, a chromosomal disorder, which is called 16p dot. It's funny, 16p.11.2. Look it up. Uh so she's she's got that, she's got autism, she has cerebral palsy, which is you can't tell by looking at her. She doesn't wear it outwardly, but she does have it. She has a speaking issue where you can't really understand anything that she says. She has an eating disorder called aphrid, A-F-R-I-D. She won't put anything in her mouth that's not liquid. It's bizarre. And among other things. And she's a teenager with hormones and it's like really a lot of work. So I I deal with a lot going on with medical things for her and him, and I try to keep up on my own medical. I don't have time to work out. See, that's why I'm I'm a skinny girl and a fat girl body because I can't seem to get myself and get this, girls. I have a gym in my garage, okay? I have track, I have a treadmill and elliptical, I've got a rowing machine, I've got a recundant bike and all the weights and like a weight system that anybody could need. And I just have to walk my little self out there. But that's where I find like I don't have time and I'm just exhausted. Because physically, if I did that, I don't I think I actually if I started doing that, I'd probably have more energy. But I feel like I just can't get myself out there. Even though I have goals, goals to lose weight. You'll get there. You'll get there. Okay,

Self-Publishing Plans And Practical Advice

32:43

so so those books, the romance ones, you're gonna self-publish them. What what is what is your plan? Oh, back to that. Yeah, so I'm thinking that I might try to figure out, go online, figure out how to be my own publisher, and and do all the things you have to do, learn how to format it, whatever it is that I need to do, because I'm thinking that I want to continue writing maybe a series like this. Or I was thinking there's also children's books that I actually started writing a curriculum book for preschool. And then I then I put it aside, I'm like, I'm gonna write my memoir, and I forgot all about that. And I didn't even remember that I was doing that for the longest time. I'm like, oh my god, I'm like halfway through it. I should finish that. Um, it's based on um STEM, like science, technology, engineering, and math, and for for preschool ages, you know, for zero to four, and or four, yeah. Well before we leave, I wanna ask you about marketing because you're like a marketing expert, and I looked at your website, it's really nice. It's nicely designed, has a lot you know, lots of cool content. But how are you marketing? So you're doing the podcast to market your book. What other things that you see work for you that you would advise other authors to do? There are things that I could be doing that I'm not doing. I did do one thing. So I knew that, and here's the thing, the kicker that's gonna be about my, I forgot to tell you about my publisher. They were gonna market the book and give me the releases and you know, like the publicity release and all the things that come out when you get a book out. When the audio book was finished, but it was and the audio book was finished like two months ago, but the book was out in June of last year. So in the meantime, I well, what am I gonna do? So I actually hired a book promoter, and again, not what it seemed like it was gonna be. They did give me the they did put together the website, and honestly, I would pick probably a different I would I would have chosen, I might I said it was good, I liked it, but I might have done something different, maybe a little bit more professional. It kind of looks like I did it in eighth grade and put it all together. But I am that kind of person. I am somebody that looks like it should be a little retro, right? Because that's kind of like my stitch. Yeah. Yeah, I liked it. I liked it. Yeah. I like the retro feel. In fact, get this. One of the other things I did for my podcast is I went on to Chat GPT and I said, write me a some lyrics that for Gen X people living in the new world and trying to cope or whatever with kids, you know, addicted to YouTube. And it gave me out a song, and I went to Suno S-U-N-O.com. I think it's dot com. And I I put in the lyrics and I said, give me, and I put in, I forget rock, country rock, or whatever it was I said, and it spit me out a theme song, and that is the song I use on my podcast in the beginning and the end. So if you listen to the very end, you'll hear my and it's really, really funny song, but it's all and that that is why my podcast album on the outside really is, you know, looks like looks like Cindy Lauper or or Madonna in neon, you know, neon clothes with like mesh hands and a big boom box because that is kind of like my vibe is the 80s feel of me. Are you monetizing the podcast? I wish. Not now, not yet. You know, I've just I've just been I like I said I just started in July of last 2025, and I I think I'm on episode 41. I have about 100 episodes done all together, and I o because I'm only releasing them once a week. And so my I have content for between now and May of 2027. So I'm I'm good for now. And but I'm hoping that I can one day go back and re-edit them and add in some commercials in the beginning or something. I don't know. I'm just not there yet. If I can learn how to do that, and if somebody out there feels like if anybody out there wants to sell their stuff, like give me a call. Okay. But I don't know. I'm not I'm not there yet. I don't know how exactly I'm gonna have to teach myself how to do that, but and get with the right people. So you mentioned TikTok and you have all these followers. Did like these followers convert into book sales or like more listeners? Um I you know, my book. Um I think they convert more into podcast listeners than book sales, because there is a way to sell books on on TikTok. It's called book talk, right? But I'm I because I'm on Amazon through a publisher, I can't be on there. Those are for indie, those are for people that do it themselves, independently. Yeah, I do that. I do that, yeah. So I would do that. I don't I would go on there and do book sales when I do my independent, you know, do it myself. That's for sure what I'm gonna do is book talk it and and then try to advert. It's just a different type of bird. It's a different type of advertising than what I'm doing. And yeah, maybe I can. So I did get with a book promoter. It's called American Books, I think. Books American, but I don't know. They're not that great. I don't really get what I'm, you know, they're I'm supposed to be, they're supposed to be pushing my book on that search engine optimization. And I just I just don't hear from them very much. I actually tried to get out of it at the last minute because they were like three, three months in. They still hadn't got me a website. And I was like, you know what, guys, let's just let's just let I want my money back. Let's just call it it quits because they weren't doing anything for me. And it was like a long time, more than three months, and just write what I mean, a second. He goes, No, no, no, we got it ready for you. And that's probably why it's rushed and it looks the way it is, is because they were forced to just give me something. So wasted money, people, don't do it. So for for busy moms like you who want to get into the creative field, like publishing a book and marketing and all of that, and what would you tell them? Like what is the advice that you tell them to actually do it and be their own boss and have their agency over what they do? Especially if they're shuffling all of these things that you mentioned. I mean, I would not give up your day job. I'd say that because you have to have income nowadays. You cannot live on you have to have income to live in our new society of like everything is expensive and gas is expensive, everything is just as expensive. So I would say uh make time to if you want to write, don't let anything stand in your way. Okay. Make the if you if there is a something in your way, make make room for it. Or if you have to let go of something, let go of something so that you have time to write. Just a couple hours a day, or when the flow is in your head. Even if you want to, I used to jot down on like a sticky note. Oh, don't forget about this thing that you went through, like, you know, because I have a terrible memory. I'm surprised I put so many damn things in my book because I just can't remember crap. And so, but I would say don't I would say don't quit your day job, but make time to write, and then there is a time in your life when you feel like this is a full-time gig, then you can put your work aside and you can, you know, I would say jump and do it, leap for it. Don't you know what I'm saying? But in the very beginning, I wouldn't say quit, don't quit your day job because you need to survive. Do you think you would ever do this full time? I would if my husband would let me. But he's he's you know, he's he's 10 years, nine and a half years older than me, and he's gonna retire soon. And one of our things is we're we we like things, okay? So we're like we like things. We just bought a car last night. We bought a Bronco. Yeah, and and it's very tall. I tell everybody go, it makes me look thin. But because it's it's like really lifted, it's like eight feet tall. I'm not kidding. And so so we like to buy things and and we also are putting money away for our retirement. If you're not putting money away in your 401k people, or your IRA, or your savings, or whatever, your or your charge swab or whatever, or buying gold or silver, okay, you're not you're not prepared for the for the future because it's gonna cost money to live. And so that's one thing is like I have to work to both jobs so that I can pay for my future. And because I'm I'm gonna have children living with me forever, and I want to give them a house that's paid off, you know. So yeah,

Where To Find Jess And Closing

41:36

yeah. Well, okay. So how can people reach you by your book? What's the best, you know, place to call me notes. Um you can you can reach me. Okay, here's the thing. I'm not gonna give you guys a bunch of places to go. Just go to my website because you go there, you can reach me, you can get to my podcast, you can get to my social media from there, you can learn a little bit about me too. So the the website is jesssaying.net. That's J-E-S-S-S-A-Y-I-N-G. Go there, learn a little bit about me. Go to all my social media and like and subscribe because I need the more community, the better, you know what I mean? And you never know, there might be something that like resonates with you when it comes to one of our shows. My my podcast is about family and relationships and books and all the fun things in life. And then we talk about everything from spaking across the different generations to I don't know, girls need to have like, I don't know. I had an author on there, she talked a lot about sex. So we it's like this one, this one. Uh, she's a romance, she's a smut she's hers are smutty, yeah. And so she talked about how, like, you know, I don't know, we're Gen Xers and our bodies are changing for the better in some ways. And we talk I might have had her on my podcast. What was her name? Long hair, uh Polinio Polino or something. I forget. She's one of my first. Go look at here's the other thing, too. Just so you know, Natasha, you can go to my website, go to podcast, scroll down, and I have a list of people that have been on my show, and you can click onto their name and go directly to their website. So if you want more guests on your show, go to my go to my website, go through all my people, and you can click on done, I'm booked until like the end of this year. I guess. But I actually I actually have, I think I put up 75 of my episodes, even though I'm only on 41. So all my future guests are on there too. And so just just so you know, there's lots of people, lots of book writers, lots and lots. Just you have a but I would love to come on your show. It sounds like fun. Yes. It's just like this. You know what I should do is just get this episode and post this on my post this on my on my stream. Yeah. Although we're not talking about you, we need to talk about you and not just me. Everybody knows all my crap. They're like, Jessica, stop talking about yourself. Because all I do sometimes is I'll go off on a tangent. Okay, so I had this guy who's a couple episodes ago, he's a drug user, and he's now, you know, no longer a drug user, but he wrote a book. It's called It's You. Oh no. Oh no, he goes, It's you. Oh fuck, it's me, is what it's called. I know it casts. I didn't mean to and so we but I told him on there, I'm like, yeah, I've been to rehab too. That's funny. It's me. So we talked about my little rehab stint, and it was funny because he kind of laughed. And I'm like, yeah, you know, sometimes, you know, if you know, like you get condemned and you're not even on drugs, or you're you know, you didn't do it. That's what I put in my book. I go, I know what it feels like to be condemned when you, you know, on a lie. So just saying. Yeah, yeah. Well, this has been great, Jess. I uh really excited to check out all your stuff, your TikTok, and learn from you. And for anyone who's uh listening or uh watching, make sure to check uh to check out Jessica Dennell's work or go on her podcast and listen to her show. And thank you very much for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha, and until we meet again. Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, Natasha Tines. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time.