Two Different Approaches To Selling Books Direct With Sacha Black And Joanna Penn
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Digital products, narration and upsells
Sacha discusses offering digital formats, narrated novellas, and adding upsell apps to increase average order value.
What does it really take to build a multi-six-figure author business with no advertising? Is running your own warehouse really necessary for direct sales success — or is there a simpler path using print-on-demand that works just as well?
In this conversation, Sacha Black and I compare our very different approaches to selling direct, from print on demand to pallets of books, and explore why the right model depends entirely on who you are and what your goals are for your author business.
In the intro, Memoir Examples and interviews [Reedsy, The Creative Penn memoir tips]; Written Word Media annual indie author survey results; Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition; Business for Authors webinars; Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant; Camino Portuguese Coastal on My Camino Podcast; Creating while Caring Community with Donn King; The Buried and the Drowned by J.F. Penn
Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it’s delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn
This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn
Sacha Black is the author of YA and non-fiction for authors and previously hosted The Rebel Author Podcast. As Ruby Roe, she is a multi-six-figure author of sapphic romantasy.
You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights, and the full transcript is below.
Show Notes
- Two models for selling direct: print on demand vs running your own warehouse. Plus, check out Sacha's solo Rebel Author episode about the details of the warehouse.
- Cashflow management
- Kickstarter lessons: pre-launch followers, fulfillment time, and realistic timelines
- How Sacha built a multi-six-figure business through TikTok with zero ad spend
- Matching your business model to your personality and skill set
- Building resilience: staff salaries, SOPs, and planning for when things change
You can find Ruby at RubyRoe.co.uk and on TikTok @rubyroeauthor and on Instagram @sachablackauthor
Transcript of the interview
Joanna: Sacha Black is the author of YA and nonfiction for authors, and previously hosted the Rebel Author podcast. As Ruby Roe, she is a multi-six-figure author of sapphic romance. So welcome back to the show, Sacha.
Sacha: Hello. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be here.
Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today.
Now, just for context, for everybody listening, Sacha has a solo episode on her Rebel Author podcast, last week as we record this, which goes into specific lessons around the warehouse in more detail, including financials. So we are going to come at this from a slightly different angle in our discussion today, which is really about two different ways of doing selling direct.
I want us to start though, Sacha, in case people don't know your background, in case they've missed out. Can you just give us a quick recap of your indie author journey, because you haven't just come out of nowhere and jumped into this business and done incredibly well?
Sacha's Indie Author Journey
Sacha: No, I really haven't. Okay. So 2013, I started writing. So 12 years ago I started writing with the intention to publish, because I was writing before, but not with the intention.
2017 I first self-published and then two years after that, in 2019, I quit the day job. But let me be clear, it wasn't because I was rolling in self-published royalties or commissions or whatever you want to call them. I was barely scraping by.
And so those are what I like to call my hustle years because I mean, I still hustle, but it was a different kind. It was grind and hustle. So I did a lot of freelance work. I did a lot of VA work for other authors. I did speaking, I was podcasting, teaching courses, and so on and so forth.
2022, in the summer, I made a realisation that I'd created another job for myself rather than a business that I wanted to grow and thrive in and was loving life and all of that stuff.
And so I took a huge risk and I slowed down everything, and I do mean everything. I slowed down the speaking, I slowed down the courses, I slowed down the nonfiction, and —
I poured everything into writing what became the first Ruby Roe book.
I published that in February 2023. In August/September 2023, I stopped all freelance work. And to be clear, at that point, I also wasn't entirely sure if I was going to be able to pay my bills with Ruby, but I could see that she had the potential there and I was making enough to scrape by. And there's nothing if not a little bit of pressure to make you work hard. So that is when I stopped the freelance.
And then in November 2023, so two months later, I started TikTok in earnest. And then a month after that, December the eighth, I went viral. And then what's relevant to this is that two days after that, on December the 10th, I had whipped up my minimum viable Shopify, and that went live.
Then roll on, I did more of the same, published more Ruby Roe books. I made a big change to my Shopify. So at that point it was still print on demand Shopify, and then February 2025, I took control and took the reins and rented a warehouse and started fulfilling distribution myself.
The Ten-Year Overnight Success
Joanna: So great. So really good for people to realise that 2013, you started writing with the intention, like, seriously, I want this to be what I do. And it was 2019 when you quit the day job, but really it was 2023 when you actually started making decent money, right?
Sacha: Almost like we all need 10 years.
Joanna: Yeah. I mean, it definitely takes time. So I wanted just to set that scene there. And also that you did at least a year of print on demand Shopify before getting your own warehouse.
Sacha: Yeah, maybe 14 months.
Joanna: Yeah, 14 months. Okay. So we are going to revisit some of these, but I also just want as context, what was your day job so people know?
Sacha: So I was a project manager in a local government, quite corporate, quite conservative place. And I played the villain. It was great. I would helicopter into departments and fix them up and look at processes that were failing and restructure things and bring in new software and bits and bobs like that.
The Importance of Business Skills
Joanna: Yeah. So I think that's important too, because your job was fixing things and looking at processes, and I feel like that is a lot of what you've done and we'll revisit that.
Sacha: How did I not realise that?!
Joanna: I thought you did know that. No. Well, oh my goodness.
And let's just put my business background in context. I'm sure most people have heard it before, but I was an IT consultant for about 13 years, but much of my job was going into businesses and doing process mapping and then doing software to fix that. And also I worked, I'm not an accountant, but I worked in financial accounting departments.
So I think this is really important context for people to realise that learning the craft is one thing, but learning business is a completely different game, right?
Sacha: Oh, it is. I have learnt — it's wild because I always feel like there's no way you can learn more than in your first year of publishing because everything is brand new.
But I genuinely feel like this past 18 months I have learnt as much, if not more, because of the business, because of money, because of all of the other legal regulation type changes in the last 18 months.
It's just been exhausting in terms of learning. It's great, but also it is a lot to learn. There is just so much to business.
Joanna's Attempts to Talk Sacha Out of the Warehouse
Joanna: So that's one thing. Now, I also want to say for context, when you decided to start a warehouse, how much effort did I put into trying to persuade you not to do this?
Sacha: Oh my goodness, me. I mean a lot. There were probably two dinners, several coffees, a Zoom. It was like, don't do it. Don't do it. You got me halfway there.
So for everybody listening, I went big and I was like, oh, I'm going to buy shipping containers and convert them and put them on a plot of land and all of this stuff. And Joanna very sensibly turned around and was like, hmm, why don't you rent somewhere that you can bail out of if it doesn't work?
And I was like, oh yeah, that does sound like a good idea.
Joanna: Try it, try it before you really commit.
Okay. So let's just again take a step back because the whole point of doing this discussion for me is because you are doing really well and it is amazing what you are doing and what some other people are doing with warehouses.
But I also sell direct and in the same way as you used to, which is I use Bookfunnel for ebooks and audiobooks and I use BookVault for print on demand books, and people can also use Lulu. That's another option for people.
So you don't have to do direct sales in the way that you've done it. And part of the reason to do this episode was to show people that there are gradations of selling direct.
Why Sell Direct?
Joanna: But I wanted to go back to the basics around this. Why might people consider selling direct, even in a really simple way, for example, just ebooks from their website, or what might be reasons to sell direct rather than just sending everything to Amazon or other stores?
Sacha: I think, well, first of all, it depends on what you want as a business model. For me, I have a similar background to you in that I was very vulnerable when I was in corporate because of redundancies, and so that bred a bit of control freakness inside me. And having control of my customers was really important to me.
We don't get any data from Amazon or Kobo really, or anywhere, even though all of these distributors are incredible for us in our careers. We don't actually have direct access to readers, and you do with Shopify. You know everything about your reader, and that is priceless.
Because once you have that data and you have delivered a product, a book, merchandise, something that that reader values and appreciates, you can then sell to them again and again and again.
I have some readers who have been on my website who have spent almost four figures now. I mean, that is just — one person's done that and I have thousands of people who are coming to the website on a regular basis.
So definitely that control and access to readers is a huge reason for doing it.
Customising the Reader Relationship
Sacha: And also I think that you can, depending on how you do this model, there are ways to do some of the things I'm going to talk about digitally as well. But for me, I really like the physical aspect of it.
We are able to customise the relationship with our customers. We can give them more because we are in control of delivery.
And so by that I mean we could give art prints, which lots of my readers really value. We can do — you could send those digitally if you wanted to, but we can add in extra freebies like our romance pop sockets, that makes them feel like they are part of my reader group. They're part of a community. It creates this belonging.
So I think there is just so much more that you can do when you are in control of that relationship and in control of the access to it.
Joanna: Yeah. And on that, I mean, one of the reasons we can do really cool print books — and again, we're going to come back to print on demand, but I use print on demand. You don't have to buy pallets of books as Sacha does.
You can just do print on demand. Obviously the financials are different, but I can still do foiling and custom end papers and ribbons and all this with print on demand through BookVault custom printing and bespoke printing.
The Speed of Money
Joanna: But also, I think the other thing with the money — I don't know if you even remember this, because it's very different when you are selling direct — you can set up your system so you get paid like every single day, right? Or every week?
Sacha: Yes.
Joanna: So the money is faster because with Amazon, with any of these other systems, it can take 30, 60, 90 days for the money to get to you. So faster money, you are in more control of the money.
And you can also do a lot more things like bundling and like you mentioned, much higher value that you could offer, but you can also make higher income. Average order value per customer because you have so many things, right? So that speed of money is very different.
Sacha: It is, but it's also very dangerous. I know we might talk about cashflow more later, but—
Joanna: Let's talk about it now.
Managing Cashflow With Multiple Bank Accounts
Sacha: Okay, cool. So one of the things that I think is the most valuable thing that I've ever done is, someone who is really clever told me that you're allowed more than one business account.
Joanna: Just to be clear, bank accounts?
Sacha: Yes, sorry. Yeah. Bank accounts. And one of my banks in particular enables you to have mini banks inside it, mini pots they call it.
And what I do with pre-orders is I treat it a bit like Amazon. So that money will come in — you know, I do get paid daily pretty much — but I then siphon it off every week into a pot.
So let's just say I've got one book on pre-order. Every week the team tells me how much we've got in pre-orders for that one product and all the shipping money, and I put it into an account and I leave it there. And I do not touch it unless it is to pay for the print run of that book or to pay for the shipping.
Because one of the benefits of coming direct to me is that I promise to ship all pre-orders early, so we have to pay the shipping costs before necessarily Amazon might pay for its shipping costs because they only release on the actual release day.
But that has enabled me to have a little savings scheme, but also guarantee that I can pay for the print run in advance because I haven't accidentally spent that money on something else or invested it. I've kept it aside and it also helps you track numbers as well, so you know how well that pre-order is doing financially.
Understanding Cashflow as an Author
Joanna: Yeah. And this cashflow, if people don't really know it, is the difference between when money comes in and when it goes out.
So another example, common to many authors, is paying for advertising. So for example, if you run some ads one month, you're going to have to pay, let's say Facebook or BookBub or whoever, that month. You might not get the money from the sale of those books if it's from a store until two months later.
In that case, the cash flows the other way. The money is sitting with the store, sitting on Amazon until they pay you later.
This idea of cashflow is so important for authors to think about. Another, I guess even more basic example is you are writing your first book and you pay for an editor.
Money goes out of your bank account and then hopefully you're going to sell some books, but that might take, let's say six months, and then some money will come back into your bank account.
I think this understanding cashflow is so important at a small level because as it gets bigger and bigger — and you are doing these very big print runs now, aren't you? Talk a bit about that.
The Risks of Print Runs
Sacha: Yeah. So one of the things I was going to say, one of the benefits of your sell direct model is that you don't have to deal with mistakes like this one.
So in my recent book, Architecti, that we launched at the end of September, we did a print run of a thousand books, maybe about 3,000 pounds, something like that, 2,000 pounds.
And basically we ended up selling all thousand and more. So the pre-orders breached a thousand and we didn't have enough books.
But what made that worse is that 20% of the books that arrived were damaged because there had been massive rain. So we then had to do a second print run, which is bad for two reasons.
The first reason is that one, that space, two, the time it's going to take to get to you — it's not instant, it's not printed on demand. But also three, I then had to spend the same amount of money again. And actually if we had ordered 2,000 originally, we would've saved a bit more money on it per book.
So you don't — if you are doing selling direct with a print on demand model, the number of pre-orders you get is irrelevant because they'll just keep printing, and you just get charged per copy.
So there are benefits and disadvantages to doing it each way. Obviously, I'm getting a cheaper price per copy printed, but not if I mess up the order numbers.
Is Running a Warehouse Just Another Job?
Joanna: So I'm going to come back on something you said earlier, which was in 2022 you said, “I realised I made a job for myself.”
Sacha: Yeah.
Joanna: And I mean, I've been to your store. You obviously have people to help you.
But one of my reservations about this kind of model is that even if you have people to help you, taking on physical book — even though you are not printing them yourself, you're still shipping them all and you're signing them all. And to me it feels like a job.
So maybe talk about why you have continued — you have pretty much decided to continue with your warehouse. So why is this not a job? What makes this fun for you?
The Joy of Physical Product Creation
Sacha: I wish that listeners could see my face because I'm literally glittering. I love it. I literally love it.
I love us being able to create cool and wacky things. We can make a decision and we can create that physical product really quickly. We can do all of these quirky things. We can experiment. We can do book boxes.
So first of all, it's the creativity in the physical product creation. I had no idea how much I love physical product creation, but there is something extremely satisfying about us coming up with an idea that's so integrated in the book.
So for example, one of my characters uses, has a coin, a yes/no coin. She's an assassin and she flips it to decide whether or not she's going to assassinate somebody. We've actually designed and had that coin made, and it's my favourite item in the warehouse. It's such a small little thing, but I love it.
And so there is a lot of joy that I derive from us being able to create these items.
Sending Book Mail and Building Community
Sacha: I think the second thing is I really love book mail. There is no better gift somebody can give me than a book. And so I do get a lot of satisfaction from knowing we're sending out lots and lots of book presents to people and we get to add more to it.
So some of the promises that we make are: I sign every book and we give gifts. We have character art and, like I've mentioned before, pop sockets and all these kinds of things.
And I get tagged daily in unboxings and stories and things like this where people are like, oh my gosh, I didn't realise I was going to get this, this, and this. And I just — it's like crack to me. I get high off of it.
So I can't — this is not for everybody. This is a logistical nightmare. There are so many problems inherent in this business model. I love it.
Discovering a Love of Team Building
Sacha: And I think the other thing, which is very much not for a lot of authors — I did not realise that I actually really like having a team. And that has been a recent realisation.
I really was told that I'm not a team player when I was in corporate, that I work alone, all of this nonsense. And I believed that and taken it on.
But finding the right team, the right people who love the jobs that they do inside your business and they're all as passionate as you, is just life changing. And so that also helps me continue because I have a really great team.
Joanna: I do have to ask you, what is a pop socket?
Sacha: It's a little round disc that has a mechanism that you can pull out and then you — and it has a sticky command strip back and you can pop it on the back of your phone or on the back of a Kindle and it helps you to hold it. I don't know how else to describe it. It just helps you to hold the device easier.
Joanna: Okay. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was confused. I'm like, why are you doing electrical socket products?
Know What Kind of Person You Are
Joanna: But I think this actually does demonstrate another point, and I hope people listening — I hope you can sort of — why we are doing this partly is to help you figure out what kind of person you are as well.
Because I can't think of anything worse than having lots of little boxes! And I've been in Sacha's thing and there's all these little stickers and there's lots of boxes of little things that they put in people's packages, which make people happy. And I'm like, oh, I just don't like packages of things.
And I mean, you geek out on packaging, don't you as well?
Sacha: Oh my goodness. Yeah. One of the first things I did when we got the warehouse was I actually went to a packaging expo in Birmingham. It was like this giant conference place and I just nerded out there. It was so fun.
And one of the things that I'm booked to do is an advent calendar. And that was what drove me there in the first place. I was looking for a manufacturer that could create an advent calendar for us. I have two. I'm not — I have two advent calendars this year because I love them so much.
But yeah, the other thing that I was going to say to you is I often think that as adults, we can find what we're supposed to do rooted in our childhood.
And I was talking the other day and someone said to me, what toy do you remember from your youth? And I was like, oh yeah. The only one that I can remember is that I had a sticker maker. I like — that makes sense. You do like stickers. And I do. Yeah.
Digital Minimalism vs Physical Products
Joanna: Yeah, I do. And I think this is so important because I love books. I buy a lot of books. I love books, but I also get rid of a lot of books.
I know people hate this, but I will just get rid of bags and bags of books. So I value books more for what's inside them than the physical product as such. I mean, I have some big expensive, beautiful books, but mostly I want what's in them.
So it's really interesting to me. And I think there's a big difference between us is just how much you like all that stuff.
So if you are listening, if you are like a digital minimalist and you don't want to have stuff around your house, you definitely don't want a warehouse. You don't want all the shipping bits and bobs. You are not interested in all that. Or even if you are, you can still do a lot of this print on demand.
Then I think that's just so important, isn't it? I mean, did you look at the print on demand merch? Did you find anything you liked?
The Draw of Customisation
Sacha: Yeah, we did, but I think for me it was that customisation. We are now moving towards — I've just put an order in this morning for 10,000 customised boxes. We've got our own branding on them. We've got a little naughty, cheeky message when they flip up the flap.
And it's little things like that that you can't — you know, we wouldn't have control over what was sent. So much of what I wanted, and some of the reasons for me doing it, is that I wanted to be able to sign the books. I was being asked on a daily basis if people could buy signed books from me, and it was driving me bonkers not being able to say yes.
But also being able to send a website mailing list sign-up in the box, or being able to give them a discount in the box. I mean, I know you do that, but yeah, there was just a lot more customisation and things that we could do if we were controlling the shipping.
Also, I wanted to pack the boxes, the books better. So we wanted to be able to bubble wrap things or we wanted to be able to waterproof things because we had various different issues with deliveries and so we wanted a bit more control over that.
So yeah, there were just so many reasons for us to do it.
Print on Demand Is Still Fantastic
Sacha: Look, don't get me wrong, if I suddenly wanted to go off travelling for a year, then maybe I would shut down the warehouse and go back to print on demand.
I think print on demand is fantastic. I did it for 14 months before I decided to open a warehouse. It is the foundation of most authors' models. So it's fantastic. I just want to do more.
Joanna: Yeah. You want to do more of it.
Life Stage Matters
Joanna: We should also, I also wanted to mention your life stage. Because when we did talk about it, your son is just going to secondary school, so we knew that you would be in the same area, right?
Sacha: Yeah.
Joanna: Because I said to you, you can't just do this and — well, you can, you could ditch it all. But the better decision is to do this for a certain number of years. If you're going to do it, it needs time, right? So you are at that point in your life.
Sacha: Yeah, absolutely. We — I mean, we are going to move house, I think, but not that far away. We'll still be in reachable distance of the warehouse.
And yeah, the staying power is so important because it's also about raising awareness. You have to train readers to come to you. You have to show them why it's beneficial for them to order directly from you.
Growing the Business Year Over Year
Sacha: And then you also have to be able to iterate and add more products. Like you were talking earlier about increasing that average order value. And that does come from having more products, but more products does create other issues like space, which may or may not be suffering issues with now.
But yeah, so for example, 2024, which was the first real year, I did about 73 and a half thousand British pounds. And then this year, where — as we record this, it's actually the 1st of December — and I'm on 232,000.
So from year one to year two, it's a huge difference. And that I do think is about the number of products and the number of things that we have on there.
Joanna: And the number of customers. I guess you've also grown your customer base as well. And one of the rules, I guess, in inverted commas, of publishing is that the money is in the backlist. And every time you add to your backlist and every launch, you are selling a lot more of your backlist as well. So I think as time goes on, yeah, you get more books.
Kickstarter as an Alternative
Joanna: But let's also talk about Kickstarter because I do signed books for my Kickstarters and to me the Kickstarter is like a short-term ability to do the things you are doing regularly.
So for example, if you want to do book boxes, you could just do them for a Kickstarter. You don't have to run a warehouse and do it every single day.
For example, your last Kickstarter for Ruby Roe made around 150,000 US dollars, which is amazing. Like really fantastic.
So just maybe talk about that, any lessons from the Kickstarter specifically, because I feel like most people, for most people listening, they are far more likely to do a Kickstarter than they are to start a warehouse.
Pre-Launch Followers Are Critical
Sacha: Yeah, so the first thing is even before you start your Kickstarter, the pre-launch follow accounts are critical.
So a lot of people think — well, I guess there's a lot of loud noise about all these big numbers about how much people can make on Kickstarter, but actually a lot of it is driven by you, the author, pushing your audience to Kickstarter.
So we actually have a formula now. Somebody more intelligent gave this to me, but essentially, based on my own personal campaign data — so this wouldn't necessarily be the same for other people — but based on my campaign data, each pre-launch follower is worth 75 pounds. And then we add on seven grand, for example.
So on campaign three, which was the most recent one, I had 1,501 pre-launch followers. And when you times that by 75 and you add on seven grand, it makes more or less exactly what we made on the campaign. And the same formula can be applied to the others.
So you need more pre-launch followers than you think you do. And lots of people don't put enough impetus on the marketing beforehand. Almost all of our Kickstarter marketing is beforehand because we drive so many people to that follow button.
Early Bird Pricing and Fulfillment Time
Sacha: And then the other thing that we do is that we do early bird pricing. So we get the majority of our income on a campaign on day one. I think it was something wild, like 80% this time was on day one, so that's really important.
The second thing is it takes so, so very much longer than you think it does to fulfil a campaign, and you must factor in that cost. Because if it's not you fulfilling, you are paying somebody else to fulfil it. And if it is you fulfilling it, you must account for your own time in the pricing of your campaign.
And the other thing is that the amount of time it takes to fulfil is directly proportionate to the size of the campaign. That's one thing I did not even compute — the fact that we went from about 56,000 British pounds up to double that, and the time was exponentially more than double. So you do have to think about that.
Overseas Printing and Timelines
Sacha: The other lesson that we have learned is that overseas printing will drag your timelines out far longer than you think it does. So whatever you think it's going to take you to fulfil, add several months more onto that and put that information in your campaign.
And thankfully, we are now only going to be a month delayed, whereas lots of campaigns get up to a year delayed because they don't consider that.
Reinvesting Kickstarter Profits
Sacha: And then the last thing I think, which was really key for us, is that if you have some profit in the Kickstarter — because not all Kickstarters are actually massively profitable because they either don't account enough for shipping or they don't account enough in the pricing.
Thankfully, ours have been profitable, but we've actually reinvested that profit back into buying more stock and more merchandise, which not everybody would want to do if they don't have a warehouse.
However, we are stockpiling merchandise and books so that we can do mystery boxes later on down the line. It's probably a year away, but we are buying extra of everything so that we have that in the warehouse.
So yeah, depending on what you want to do with your profit, for us it was all about buying more books, basically.
Offering Something Exclusive
Sacha: I think the other thing to think about is what is it that you are doing that's exclusive to Kickstarter? Because you will get backers on Kickstarter who want that quirky, unique thing that they're not going to be able to get anywhere else.
But what about you? Because you've done more Kickstarters than me. What do you think is the biggest lesson you've learned?
Reward Tiers and Bundling
Joanna: Oh, well I think all of mine together add up to the one you just did.
Although I will comment on — you said something like 75 pounds per pre-launch backer. That is obviously dependent on your tiers for the rewards, so most authors won't have that amount.
So my average order value, which I know is slightly different, but I don't offer things like book boxes like you have. So a lot of it will depend on the tiers. Some people will do a Kickstarter just with an ebook, just with one ebook and maybe a bundle of ebooks. So you are never going to make it up to that kind of value.
So I think this is important too, is have a look at what people offer on their different levels of Kickstarter.
And in fact, here's my AI tip for the day. What you can do — what I did with my Buried and the Drowned campaign recently — is I uploaded my book to ChatGPT and said, tell me, what are some ideas for the different reward tiers that I can do on Kickstarter? And it will give you some ideas for what you can do, what kind of bundles you might want to do.
So I think bundling your backlist is another thing you can do as upsells, or you can just, for example, for me, when I did Blood Vintage, I did a horror bundle when it was four standalone horror books in one of the upper tiers.
So I think bundling is a good way. Also upselling your backlist is a really good way to up things. And also if you do it digitally, so for ebooks and audiobooks, there's a lot less time in fulfillment.
Focus on Digital Products Too
Joanna: So again, yours — well, you make things hard, but also more fun according to you, because most of it's physical, right? In fact, this is one of the things you haven't done so well, really, is concentrate on the digital side of things. Is that something you are thinking about now?
Sacha: Yeah, it is. I mean, we do have our books digitally on the website. So the last — I only had one series in Kindle Unlimited, and I took those out in January.
But so we do have all of the digital products on the website, and the novellas that we do, we have in all formats because I narrate the audio for them.
So that is something that we're looking at. And since somebody very smart told me to have upsell apps on my website, we now have a full “get the everything bundle” in physical and digital and we are now selling them as well. Surprising. Definitely not you.
So yeah, we are looking at it and that's something that we could look at next year as well for advertising because I haven't really done any advertising. I think I've spent about 200 pounds in ads in the last four months or something. It's very, very low level.
So that is a way to make a huge amount of profit because the cost is so low. So your return, if you're doing a 40 or 50 pound bundle of ebooks and you are spending, I don't know, four pounds in advertising to get that sale, your return on that investment is enormous for ads. So that is something that we are looking at for next year, but it just hasn't been something that we've done a huge amount of.
A Multi-Six-Figure Author With No Ads
Joanna: Yeah. Well, just quoting from your solo episode where you say, “I don't have any advertising costs, customers are from my mailing list, TikTok and Instagram.”
Now, being as you are a multi-six-figure author with no ads, this is mostly unthinkable for many authors. And so I wonder if, maybe talk about that. How do you think you have done that and can other people potentially emulate it, or do you think it's luck?
It's Not Luck, It's Skill Set
Sacha: Do you know, this is okay. So I don't think it's luck. I don't believe in luck. I get quite aggressive about people flinging luck around. I know some people are huge supporters of luck. I'm like, no.
Do I think anybody can do it? Do you know, I swing so hard on this. Sometimes I say yes, and sometimes I think no. And I think the brutal truth of it is that I know where my skill set lies and I lean extremely heavily into it.
So what do I mean by that? TikTok and Instagram are both very visual mediums. It is video footage. It is static images. I am extremely comfortable on camera. I am an ex-theatre kid. I was on TV as a kid. I did voiceover work when I was younger. This is my wheelhouse.
So acting a bit like a tit on TikTok on a video, I am very comfortable at doing that, and I think that is reflected in the results.
Consistency Without Burnout
Sacha: And the other part of it is because I am comfortable at doing it, I enjoy it. It makes me laugh. And therefore it feels easy. And I think because it feels easy, I can do it over and over and over again without burning out.
I started posting on TikTok on November the 19th, 2023, and I have posted three times a day every day since. Every single day without stopping, and I do not feel burnt out. And I definitely feel like that is because it's easy for me because I am good at it.
Reading the Algorithm
Sacha: The other thing that I think goes in here is that I'm very good at reading what's working.
So sorry to talk Clifton Strengths, but my number one Clifton Strength is competition. And one of the skills that has is understanding the market. We're very good at having a wide view.
So not only do I read the market on Amazon or in bookstores or wherever I can, it's the same skill set but applied to the algorithm. So I am very good at dissecting viral videos and understanding what made it work, in the same way somebody that spends 20,000 pounds a month on Facebook advertising is very good at doing analytics and looking at those numbers.
I am useless at that. I just can't do it. I just get complete shutdown. My brain just says no, and I'm incapable of running ads. That's why I don't do it.
Not Everyone Can Do This
Sacha: So can anybody do this? Maybe. If you are comfortable on camera, if you enjoy it.
It's like we've got a mutual friend, Adam Beswick. We call him the QVC Book Bitch because he is a phenomenon on live videos on TikTok and Instagram and wherever he can sell. Anything on those lives. It is astonishing to watch the sales pop in as he's on these lives.
I can't think of anything worse. I will do a live, but I'll be signing books and having a good old chitchat. Not like it's — like that hand selling.
Another author, Willow Winters, has done like 18 in-person events this year. I literally die on the inside hearing that. But that's what works for them and that's what's helping grow their business models.
So ah, honestly, no. I actually don't think anybody can do what I've done. I think if you have a similar skill set to me, then yes you can. But no, and I know that I don't want to crush anybody listening.
Do you like social media? I like social media. Do you like being on camera? Then yeah, you can do it. But if you don't, then I just think it's a waste of your time. Find out what you are good at, find out where your skill set is, and then lean in very, very hard.
Writing to Your Strengths and Passion
Joanna: I also think, because let's be brutal, you had books before and they didn't sell like this.
Sacha: Yep.
Joanna: So I also think that you leaned into — yes, of course, sapphic romance is a big sub-genre, but you love it. And also it's your lived experience with the sapphic sub-genre. This is not you chasing a trend, right? I think that's important too because too many people are like, oh, well maybe this is the latest trend. And is TikTok a trend? And then try and force them together, whereas I feel like you haven't done that.
Sacha: No, and actually I spoke to lots of people who were very knowledgeable on the market and they all said, don't do it.
And the reason for this is that there were no adult lesbian sapphic romance books that were selling when I looked at the market and decided that this was what I wanted to write. And I was like, cool, I'm going to do it then.
And rightly so, everyone was like, well, there's no evidence to suggest that this is going to make any money. You are taking a huge risk. And I was like, yeah, but I will. I knew from the outset before I even put a word to the page how I was going to market it.
And I think that feeling of coming home is what I — I created a home for myself in my books and that is why it's just felt so easy to market.
Lean Into What You're Good At
Sacha: It's like you, with your podcasting. Nobody can get anywhere near your podcast because you are so good at it. You've got such a history. You are so natural with your podcasting that you are just unbeatable, you know? So it's a natural way for you to market it.
Joanna: Many have tried, but no, you're right. It's because I like this.
And what's so funny — I'm sure I've mentioned it on the show — but I did call you one day and say, okay, all right, show me how to do this TikTok thing. And you spent like two hours on the phone with me and then I basically said no. Okay. I almost tried and then I just went, no, this is definitely not for me.
And I think that this has to be one of the most important things as an author. Maybe some people listening are just geeking out over packaging like you are, and maybe they're the people who might look at this potential business model. Whereas some people are like me and don't want to go anywhere near it. And then other people like you want to do video and maybe other people like me want to do audio.
So yeah, it's so important to find, well, like you said, what does not work for you? What is fun for you and when are you having a good time? Because otherwise you would have a job.
Like to me, it looks like a job, you having a warehouse. But to you, it's not the same as when you were grinding it out back in 2022.
Packing Videos Are Peak Content
Sacha: Completely. And I think if you look at my social media feeds, they are disproportionately full of packing videos, which I think tells you something.
Joanna: Oh dear. I just literally — I'm just like, oh my, if I never see any more packaging, I'll be happy.
Sacha: Yeah. That's good.
The One Time Sacha Nearly Burnt It All Down
Sacha: I have to say, there was one moment where I doubted everything. And that was at the end — but basically, in about, of really poor timing. I ended up having to fulfil every single pre-order of my latest release and hand packing about a thousand books in two weeks. And I nearly burnt it all to the ground.
Joanna: Because you didn't have enough staffing, right? And your mum was sick or something?
Sacha: Yeah, exactly that. And I had to do it all by myself, and I was alone in the warehouse and it was just horrendous. So never again. But hey, I learned the lessons and now I'm like, yay, let's do it again.
Things Change: Building Resilience Into Your Business
Joanna: Yeah. And make sure there's more staffing. Yes, I've talked a lot on this show — things change, right? Things change.
And in fact, the episode that just went out today as we record this with Jennifer Probst, which she talked about hitting massive bestseller lists and doing just incredibly well, and then it just dropped off and she had to pivot and change things.
And I'm not like Debbie Downer, but I do say things will change. So what are you putting in place to make sure, for example, TikTok finally does disappear or get banned, or that sapphic romance suddenly drops off a cliff? What are you doing to make sure that you can keep going in the future?
Managing Cash Flow and Salaries
Sacha: Yeah, so I think there's a few things.
The first big one is managing cash flow and ensuring that I have three to six months' worth of staff salaries, for want of a better word, in an account. So if the worst thing happens and sales drop off — because I am responsible for other people's income now — that I'm not about to shaft a load of people. So that really helps give you that risk reassurance.
Mailing Lists and Marketing Funnels
Sacha: The second thing is making sure that we are cultivating our mailing lists, making sure that we are putting in infrastructure, like things like upsell apps.
And, okay, so here's a ridiculous lesson that I learned in 2025: an automation sequence, an onboarding automation sequence, is not what people mean when they say you need a marketing funnel.
I learned this in Vegas. A marketing funnel will sell your products to your existing readers. So when a customer signs up to your mailing list because they've purchased something, they will be tagged and then your email flow system will then send them a 5% discount on this, or “did you know you could bundle up and get blah?”
So putting that kind of stuff in place will mean that we can take more advantage of the customers that we've already got.
Standard Operating Procedures
Sacha: It's also things like organisational knowledge. My team is big enough now that there are things in my business I don't know how to do. That's quite daunting for somebody who is a control freak.
So I visited Vegas in 2025 and I sat in a session all on — this sounds so sexy — but standard operating procedures.
And now I've given my team the job of creating a process instruction manual on how they do each of their tasks so that if anybody's sick, somebody else can pick it up. If somebody leaves, we've got that infrastructure in place.
And even things down to things like passwords — who, if I unfortunately got hit by a car, who can access my Amazon account? Stuff like that, unfortunately.
Joanna: Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, that would be tragic, wouldn't it?
Sacha: But it's stuff like that.
Building Longer Timelines
Sacha: But then also more day-to-day things is putting in infrastructure that pulls me out. So looking more at staffing responsibilities for staffing so that I don't always have to be there, and creating longer timelines.
That is probably the most important thing that we can do because we've got a book box launching next summer. And we both had the realisation — I say we, me and my operations manager — had the realisation that actually we ought to be commissioning the cover and the artwork now because of how long those processes take.
So I'm a little bit shortsighted on timelines, I think. So putting a bit more rigour in what we do and when.
We now have a team-wide heat map where we know when the warehouse is going to be really, really full, when staff are off, when deliveries are coming, and that's projected out a year in advance.
So lots and lots of things that are changing. And then I guess also eventually we will do advertising as well. But that is a few months down the line.
Personal Financial Resilience
Sacha: And then on the more personal side, it's looking at things like not just how you keep the business running, but how do you keep yourself running? How do you make sure that, let's say you have a bad sales month, but you still have to pay your team? How are you going to get paid?
So I, as well as having put staff salaries away, I also have my own salary. I've got a few months of my own salary put away. And then investing as well.
I know, I am not a financial advisor, but I do invest money. I serve money that I pay myself. You can also do things like having investment vehicles inside your business if you want to deal with extra cash.
And then I am taking advice from my accountant and my financial advisor on do I put more money into my pension — because did I say that I also have a pension? So I invest in my future as well.
Or do I set up another company and have a property portfolio? Or how do I essentially make the money that is inside the business make more money rather than reinvesting it, spending it, and reinvesting it on things that don't become assets or don't become money generating?
What can I do with the cash that's inside the company in order to then make it make more for the long term? Because then if you do have a down six months or worse, a down year, for example, you've got enough cash and equity inside the business to cover you during those lower months or years or weeks — or hopefully just a day.
Different Business Models for Different Authors
Joanna: Yes, of course. And we all hope it just carries on up and to the right, but sometimes it doesn't work that way.
So it's really great that you are doing all those things. And I think what's lovely and why we started off with you giving us that potted history was it hasn't always been this way.
So if you are listening to this and you are like, well, I've only got one ebook for sale on Amazon, well that might be all you ever want to do, which is fine.
Or you can come to where my business model is, which is mostly even — I use print on demand, but it's mostly digital. It's mostly online. It's got no packaging that I deal with.
Or you can go even further like Sacha and Adam Beswick and Willow Winters. But because that is being talked about a lot in the community, that's why we wanted to do this — to really show you that there's different people doing different things and you need to choose what's best for you.
What Are You Excited About for 2026?
Joanna: But just as we finish, just tell us what are you excited about for 2026?
Sacha: Oh my goodness me. I am excited to iterate my craft. And this is completely not related to the warehouse, but I have gotten myself into a position where I get to play with words again. So I'm really excited for the things that I'm going to write.
But also in terms of the warehouse, we've got the new packaging, so getting to see those on social media. We are also looking at things like book boxes. So we are doing a set of three book boxes and these are going to be new and bigger and better than anything that we've done before. And custom tailored. Oh, without giving too much away, but items that go inside and also the artwork.
I love working with artists and commissioning different art projects. But yeah, basically more of the same, hopefully world domination.
Joanna: World domination. Fantastic. So basically more creativity.
Sacha: Yeah.
Joanna: And also a bigger business. Because I know you are ambitious and I love that. I think it's really good for people to be ambitious.
Joanna: Oh, I do have another question. Do you have more sympathy for traditional publishing at this point?
Sacha: How dare you? Unfortunately, yeah. I really have learnt the hard way why traditional publishers need the timelines that they need.
This latest release was probably the biggest that — so this latest release, which was called Architecting, is the reason that I did the podcast episode, because I learned so many lessons. And in particular about timelines and how tight things get, and it's just not realistic when you are doing this physical business.
So that's another thing if you are listening and you are like, oh no, no, no, I like the immediacy of being able to finish, get it back from the editor and hit publish — this ain't for you, honey. This is not for you.
Joanna: Yeah. No, that's fantastic.
Where to Find Sacha and Ruby Roe
Joanna: So where can people find you and your books online?
Sacha: For the Ruby Empire, it's RubyRoe.co.uk and RubyRoeAuthor on TikTok if you'd like to see me dancing like a wally. And then Instagram, I'm back as @SachaBlackAuthor on Instagram.
Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Sacha. That was great.
Sacha: Thank you for having me.
The post Two Different Approaches To Selling Books Direct With Sacha Black And Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.
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