I am from Syracuse, New York, so that’s about three hours from New York City. And I have been a high school teacher for 28 years. So a lot of what I’m doing is sharing what I actually learned from high school kids and parents and everything when I write. And I wanted to do that for a long time and when I ran across Sophie online, I just decided to do it finally. I wanted to make money when I retired to travel, because I have two girls who moved from New York to California. And I want to get there and not worry about money. I started looking and ran across Sophie talking and she’s just so down to earth and I felt like I can relate to this woman. And I started writing and following the steps of the course, but mainly for a side hustle income.
With Sophie, you don’t feel overwhelmed. You feel like you can do it. It’s honest. And then just knowing she has a whole team behind her that you can talk to. I can, at any point, I can email any time of the day and get a reply from Sophie’s team. And I need that. I need personal human relationships. I love when Sophie actually says, “I tried this, it didn’t work.” And just admits it. Instead of always saying it’ll happen for you, all that, every time, she tells you what not to do because she did it. I never really buy something unless I know I’m going to make a profit from it, all my business have always been profitable. So I felt that same vibe from Sophie. She’s not going to do anything that you’re not going to make money.
So my obstacle was overwritten when I heard I’m going to get step by step instruction and that we’re here for you. You’re in it for life. It continues as I grow. It seems to be that Sophie picks up the right people that can relate to you, like Virginia and CJ. I can sit and listen to them for an hour and I’ve got a page full of notes that I can immediately act on. And in other courses I am so tuning people out. It just seems so robo. And I really like talking to people that are doing what they’re telling us to do. And then I really like Bruce, because he can help me with my ads so I can sell books. I love that my books, I’m hearing from people that are reading them and say, “Hey, you’re helping me with my kids.” Or, “My teenagers, we’re talking again.”
There’s no money value to that. That’s awesome. My book is funny in a way, but, “Does Your Teen Talk?” And then, “No, but they snap, Tweet and TikTok.” So my whole book is stories and teenage quotes to help parents. What I’ve been doing for years, because I’m a technology high school teacher. And I’ve been on TV about my book, I’ve done a newspaper article, I’ve gone to the library. It’s crazy. But to hear from people and also get reviews online that say stuff, that’s pretty cool. I write and discipline myself to write an hour day. But now I’m loving hiring ghost writers. It’s just that first couple of books I just needed to get a handle on it. And, like Sophie had recommended, your first book you might do a lot of parts of it, but now it’s just like, it’s crazy how there’s so many talented people out there you just give them ideas and then they fill in the gaps. I wouldn’t have known that without Sophie’s course.
I started during COVID in March. March, 2020. And I happened to be home teaching from my computer instead of going to the school every day. So I dove into it and I had the first book out and published an up on Amazon in about four months. I had my first sale on the first day. And I’ll tell you how I got it was I went out on LinkedIn and posted my book. I put the cover on my LinkedIn, which I had for years built up through school, just for teaching. And somebody went out and bought the book that I know. And then the goal was 20 reviews. We had been taught to get reviews, get reviews. So that took about four weeks. And I reached out to friends and family, like they advised.
And then I got some organic sales, which was really cool. And this book is coming out in about two weeks and, but it’s the same idea of what I teach teenagers, make their life simpler and to succeed. You can do at any age at any time. So I would like to see my sales go up to that 1000 a month. I’m in the hundred range, which I still can’t believe that people would buy what I wrote in my living room in the morning, but it’s nice to have some sales, somebody’s reading it.
I didn’t realize how many people out there really encourage others to succeed. Let’s say you have trouble on Amazon one day where your book is not showing up. It’s okay to say, “Hey, my book’s not showing up. And can you give me some advice?” Everybody just says it. If I hadn’t joined the group, I’d probably be done at one book. I probably would’ve done that, reached my bucket list and moved on. But I like that the group pushes you to do more. I think that it’s kind of cool when one of my students says, “You wrote a book?” Like there’s surprise. And I like it when their parents say that. It’s cool to be able to give them an example, too, of, I’m doing something too that’s a little scary sometimes, but it really feels good when you go for it.