In this episode, we dive into the world of cozy mysteries with our incredible guest, Tonya Kappes! Renowned as one of the most successful cozy mystery authors, Tonya has not only captured the hearts of her readers but has created a thriving community that sets her apart. Join us in this exclusive interview where we explore the passion that fuels Tonya’s literary journey.
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Tonya Kappes’ Links:
Tonya’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Tonyakappesbooks
Tonya’s website: https://tonyakappes.com/
#63 Episode Outline:
00:00:00 Introduction
00:05:18 How Tanya Started Her Subscription
00:21:46 Keeping Up With Tonya’s Subscription
00:33:40 Drawing Boundaries With Your Readers
00:39:20 Tonya’s Book Box Tier
00:46:06 Tonya’s Book Club
00:51:11 Tonya’s Advice for Writers
00:56:52 Slow Building Your Subscription
01:07:04 Conclusion
#63 Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00]
Tonya Kappes: Because, again, I’m the brand. No one can replicate this New York accent.
Replicate, you know, no one can replicate what I am, and I am my brand. As much as, you know, people are like, oh, you know, your brand is, you know, your colors, your brand is, and I’m not. I’m the brand, no one can replicate me
Welcome to Subscriptions for Authors. Meet your co hosts, Michael Evans, sci fi thriller author of a dozen novels, and Amelia Rose, a semi romance author that makes six figures per year in subscriptions. Together, we will help you make more money with subscriptions and succeed in the future of publishing.
Michael Evans: today, we have an unbelievably special guest, Tanya Kappes, who is the most successful cozy mystery authors and descriptions in the world. In fact, she’s one of the most successful description authors, period, but is by far [00:01:00] the most successful cozy mystery author. And what you’re about to hear in this interview is so inspiring because The one thing that I love, well, I love many things about you, Tonya, so this is only one of those things, but is her passion.
She’s so passionate for her readers, and that shines through. And we get to see how she’s been able to create this awesome space for them to come together in her subscription. And this cutie that she’s formed, she’s doing incredible things like if you’re driving try to really not take out your phone while driving and jot down notes because she’s going to give you a lot of different ideas about how to interact with your community.
I think Tonya and Christopher Hopper, which if y’all haven’t met Christopher Hopper, if y’all haven’t seen what he’s doing, they are kindred spirits. They are very kindred spirits. Christopher Hopper in Science Fiction, Tonya with Cozy Mysteries. And it’s just incredible to see the arc of Tonya’s career. I mean, we’re talking Almost 200 books published at this point.
Probably by the time [00:02:00] this is released, there’ll be another book out. And if you’re listening to this in the future, she’ll probably get 200 books published. She’s a cozy mystery author, really focuses a lot on southern cozy mysteries, does some paranormal, which I love, being from Charleston, a very paranormal city.
And I also go to Savannah a lot, because it’s not far. And I just feel like those are two very southern, cozy, paranormal cities. So, I’m a big fan. What I’m even more amazed by is what she’s done with her subscription. She talked about why she started it, which was similar. So that’s right around the time, the pandemic, how it’s grown over the last three plus years now, and.
All the different tiers that she now has set up, all the different things she’s doing for her community. It’s incredible. It’s like, my boy. And I just want to give you all one word of advice going into this podcast, which is
Tanya has so many amazing things going on that like, I feel like five of the average author’s subscriptions are combined in her one subscription. So if you’re [00:03:00] listening to her and thinking, I need to do exactly what she’s doing, you don’t have to do all of it, and definitely not on day one. And she offers this advice in the end.
So if you want Tanya’s advice. And actually how to start your subscription, you gotta wait to the end, because she gives some incredible, unbelievable advice. And some things she’s learned from, and some things she would do differently, and more importantly, what she would do if she was in your shoes. With that said, this is one of the best talks on community building I’ve ever heard.
And the advice and insight she shares and everything she’s doing is just It’s incredible. It’s incredible. I’m still kind of like, mind blown. So I hope you enjoy it. If y’all aren’t part of our community yet, then you should join. We have a Facebook group. It’s called Scriptions for Authors. It’s an amazing place to be.
We’d love to have you a part of it. And also, if you want to hear more from Tonya, she’s actually speaking. She’s a keynote speaker at the Scriptions for Authors Summit, which you can find the link to the virtual summit and also the in person summit. Tonya will actually be at our in person summit, but if you can’t make it, then you can attend virtually.
That’ll be down below. It’s happening. It’s happening. [00:04:00] In May, in Boston, or virtually in May, wherever you want to be. And it’s going to be amazing. And she’s going to be diving deep into her subscription journey, sharing the behind the scenes, and ultimately, sharing advice to help you all grow your subscription security.
I’m excited for it. In the meantime, let’s get into this podcast. This one’s going to be amazing.
Michael Evans: Tanya, I am so excited to have you here today. I’ve been a fan of you for a very long time. I know Amelia met you, I think, in March? You all were at the Mastermind together in Texas?
We were, yeah. Yeah. She was saying how lovely you were and she was like, Tonya has got this amazing patron and I’m like really so I checked it out and I’ve just been kind of following you watching what you’re doing and so impressed and I’m so excited to have you on the podcast today [00:05:00] before we actually talk about, you know.
What you’re doing on your Patreon, how, how you’ve come to, I think having a really unique, amazing experience that you’re giving your readers. I want to talk about how you even got to starting a subscription in the first place. I know you’re definitely been around the block quite a few times as
Tonya Kappes: an author.
Well, first off, thanks for having me. I’m super excited to be here and I love the space that you’ve created for authors. And really, if you think back to like Kindle Unlimited, I’ve been publishing since before Kindle Unlimited, that’s a subscription, right? And so back before the pandemic, I had a thriving Facebook group and the pandemic hit and I was building a house.
The house building stopped my sister’s a, a nurse practitioner in the medical field and she said, this is going to be a while and we had moved into an apartment because we had sold our house so quickly and [00:06:00] so I said, she’s like, you know, you’re empty nest, we’re empty nest, you should just move in with us.
It’s going to be a while. And I’m like, oh, it can’t be that long. But as a neurologist, she’s like, oh, it’s going to be a while. So she could foresee that. So I ended up moving in with her. Yeah. And the Facebook community was just people at home, I was doing book boxes before the pandemic, and I had a thriving book box business, and it, people were losing their jobs.
And they, I said, do you guys want to hold your subscription, get your money back? Do you you know, some people are like, I still want the box, but we don’t know how this is spread. And so they were worried that I could spread the virus if I had it through the boxes. It was a whole thing, but you have to know my demographic is also older because I am in Cozy Mystery.
So I have a lot of older readers, right, before the pandemic. sO what happened was that the book boxes just, I said, well, we’re all going to stop it. I’m giving all the money back, no sweat off my back, [00:07:00] right? I just want everybody to be happy and community. So I started up this thing on Facebook thinking my sister was like, oh, this is gonna be three months long.
So I’m living with my sister. Our house build has stopped. My son has moved home from college. Her daughter moved home from college and her daughter was on this thing called Patreon with she was following a musician. And so these young college kids started following their favorite musicians, how these people were making a living now that they weren’t doing their gigs.
And so I was living with them, and I’m watching them, and I’m like, what is that? And she’s like, oh, it’s, you know, Patreon. It’s really cool for creators. And I’m like, well, I’m And I just kind of started looking at it, but what I was doing in my Facebook author page outside of my group was I was doing a thing called what started out as 30 days of community because I think on 30 days, we’re going to be out of this.
Right? Well, every day I posted something and it had to be where they had to comment back to 3 other people. So we felt like we were in community. And those posts [00:08:00] grew to thousands of people answering these 1 posts a day. So then I’m like, okay, they make 1 on for another month. So we extended it and then we extended it for another.
So we did 90 days of community. And then I thought, okay I go live all the time, but so what I started doing was called something called Bedtime Stories with Tanya. So I started reading I started going through all my books, reading one chapter a night. I would just go in there like, okay, let’s read this chapter tonight.
And I started reading. I love that. Yeah. And so they were just craving community so much. And some of them were like, oh, I couldn’t get on Facebook or Facebook wasn’t showing you to me. And I’m like, well, I don’t like that. So then I kind of started digging into this Patreon that my niece was on and I thought, well, I can do this, you know, they can join for a dollar and, you know, we’ll give it to charity.
So I made like, okay, what else can I do? So I was on the TikTok and I’m like, oh, you know, [00:09:00] who can I look at to see? That might have a Patreon. So I had found Willow Winters, who I have no, I don’t know her at all. And so I’m like, oh, I’m going to look at her Patreon. So I joined her Patreon and I’m like, oh, I don’t write this kind of stuff at all.
There’s barely like an eye roll at each other for a love interest in my books because I write cozy mysteries, but I can definitely see. Me doing something like this with my readers, but again, you have to take into consideration. A lot of my readers were at that time, you know, between 50 and 80 or 50 to death, you know, to the gray and so on income, you know?
So I thought, well, how am I going to do this? To where I can have a community on Facebook. So I did a dollar tier and I did a 5 tier. And then I think then I did the 25 tier. And it really, I wasn’t sure what they would want. Right. So I thought we’ll do a zoom a month because [00:10:00] that’s over there. But also I want to make sure we’re giving at this time, right.
People need it. So on the Patreon when I make a call or they’ll message me, they’re able to request. I keep a long list of requests and thankfully we’ve hit a lot of these are been able to give to 2 charities a month. So, so much of the money that they put on towards their Patreon goes towards a charity and they get to pick the charity and I donate the money.
To the charity in their name, so they will sometimes get the, the thing that says it, or if it makes me do my name, I could do a memo and says in honor of this Patreon. I love that. And so we’ve been able to, to, to give back thousands of dollars over the past 3 years since we’ve had our Patreon. So it just started becoming more of a community.
It became [00:11:00] something to where every for like the dollar tier, everybody’s invited to the Zoom, you know, it doesn’t matter what tier you’re on, come to the monthly Zoom. So we started a book clubs, we do a book club in the Zoom, and sometimes we just do like a party where we do, I can do online bingo, I’ve got prizes that I mail out to them.
We have, now we have a Halloween party every month. We all dress up and we come and we play Halloween games. And then I make this fun magazine that they can download. We also do something called Friendsgiving. And so they make a dish and we have Friendsgiving, you know, here we are, hundreds of us in this Zoom eating the thing.
And we talk, we go around and we say something we’re thankful for. It takes a long couple hours, but we all hang in there, you know, and we all turn in our recipes. So every year I make a recipe book just of our recipes that we send in [00:12:00] and what I have also discovered is that during that time of the pandemic.
Their daughters also were home or their adult children had started moving in and they’re like, what is mom doing or what’s going on or what books and so my demographic started getting younger and younger. So, as it got younger and younger, I saw younger and younger people join the group. Wow. Throughout the past 3 years, what’s happened is that we have been through divorces together, anxiety of these young girls.
Deaths of husbands and loved ones. We’ve all, we’ve met, they have every year I have put on for the past nine years, an in person event where I rent a train or somewhere in the United States for my readers for a weekend and we do things like a ghost walk and we have so much fun and so they have come and have met in person to these events [00:13:00] now and they’ve brought their daughters and sometimes they bring their son in laws because They’ve gotten to know me on these things, but we have celebrated marriages.
We have celebrated we do a sock exchange every year, which is coming up this weekend. As we do it through Elster, so we don’t know who we have. But when I got my package in the mail, I know that that’s from my sock exchange. So I’m not opening it up until we have our zoom on Sunday. And that’s how we do it.
We you know, we’ve just done a whole lot of things. And so every I have everybody’s birthday. So they get a birthday. I kind of pulled that, like, different birthday cards each one. My husband. He has been able to retire from his job for 35 years and he’s part of it. So they all know him, you know, he’s in it.
My cat, they love her. So I’m the cards. He signs the cards. You know, every everything we do, like, what it’s become is just community and in that. They all [00:14:00] read my books, you know, but also it has grown. So I always think to myself, what else can I give them? So it grew from just those tiers to then, you know, things I send them.
So I send them like, you know, stickers, they get brochures. This is a Happy Trails. This is one of my series. And so it’s just like when you go camping, brochure of the campground. Beautiful. And like, particulars and. It’s so silly, like it says contact details, just holler with it. Yeah, it’s open it up. It’s a, you know, it’s a way they can track.
Michael Evans: Oh, and then those are all those are all your books or maybe not all. Those are a lot of them. Okay. What is serious? Okay. Like, yeah, all of your books would be like. Multiple pages,
Tonya Kappes: and so I thought, oh, what else can I do for them outside of just the extra content. So just like romance, you know, they have like these really fun epilogues or they have something, some extra content to sign up for their newsletters.
Well, that’s not really super popular and cozy mystery. So I don’t [00:15:00] write romance, but boy, do we have that subplot of a romance, right? And, you know, they might touch each other. You know, that’s the romance of the cozy mystery. So I have a lot of fun creating extra content from the male perspective on a date that he takes my sleuth on.
We also have valentine’s month where each one of my sleuths boyfriend or, or, you know, husband or whatever it is, writes a valentine love letter and all those kinds of things as well. We also, I send out Christmas cards. We celebrate everybody’s birthday, no matter what. Oh, thank you. And so everybody gets a birthday post.
Amazing. Everybody gets a Christmas card. And all the, all the things. But what I’ve noticed is it’s not just about the cozy mystery genre as, as a brand. I’m the brand. I’m the person. And I think if you had asked anybody what their most favorite part of it is, they love all the goodies and things like that, but they love [00:16:00] the community of the zone.
And they love the fact that I am just me. A lot of them, when they meet me in person, are like, Oh my God, you’re exactly like you are on Zoom. And I’m like, yeah, you know, I’m the exact same. And, you know, they recognize, they feel like family. You know, they feel like family. One of my patreons, she you know, is so dear to me because she worked in a hospital where I’m from, and my parents live two hours away, and my father had gotten COVID during COVID, and he had a COVID heart attack, and then eight hours later had a stroke, and so I knew that he was in the hospital where she was.
And I had no idea what she did in the hospital. I never met her and I messaged her on Patreon and I said, listen, you know, is there any way that you can tell me about this unit that he’s in? She’s like, Oh, you know, if you want to give me your phone number, I’ll do better than that. I’ll go in there and I’ll FaceTime you with them because you couldn’t go in and see him.
[00:17:00] So, I mean, she went above and beyond. She FaceTimed with me. She took him, she’d clean out his little hearing aids. And she’d talk to my mom every night. she didn’t even work on that floor. But she would go in, she’d put his little teeth in. And she, so over the past two years, we had been on an up and down roller coaster with him and family things.
We love her to death. And since my father has passed the past couple of months, and it was devastating, but the point is, is that we, you know, we you just never know who you’re going to meet in these communities. So I’m like, how can I continue to give back to my community and some special people like that?
So that’s when I decided to write. Back when Vela started, Amazon had contacted me and said, Oh, would you be interested in doing these daily serials or these serial fiction? And I said, yeah, that would be great because I had already started thinking about doing serial fiction for my Patreon group. And, you know, [00:18:00] this is for them first.
Right? So then Amazon was like, Oh, well, you can’t do it just outside of, you know, Vela. And I’m like, Oh, well, then I can’t. I’m not going to do it. You know, there’s no way. And then they came back like 3 weeks later. So, okay, well, you can put it on like Wattpad or Patreon and Bella, but you have to keep it in Bella for 30 days before you can publish it.
Yeah, it was like the early days. Yeah. So I’m like, okay, so I write a specific, so it was a spinoff from my most popular series. And so they get the daily serial and those books, and then they’re also on Bella as well. But then but they get it before everybody else. So they get, you know, all the books and all the audio, they get all the audio recorded.
And currently they’re getting all the exclusive on what’s happening with the movie and what’s happening with like they’ll get clips of all the producer zooms. I’m allowed [00:19:00] to do those. I saw that. That’s so
Michael Evans: cool.
Tonya Kappes: Yeah, they just love, but, right off the bat, I said, I am very, to them, to the producers, I’m very close with my readers, my Patreon group, and they, I feel like I would do a disservice if I can’t share this journey with them, as I’m going through it with my excitement, and you know, we never, well, I don’t know if it’ll ever come to film, but it’s pretty close, but so, they were like, yeah, we’re all in.
And so, so they loved it and they love that I’m that close with my readers. So really for me it all started all because of the pandemic to just create the community that’s been growing and growing. And I think, you know, like I said, if you were to ask them what they love most, it’s probably just the Zoom calls.
You know, the community of it. Yeah.
Michael Evans: Wow. That is so inspiring and insightful. [00:20:00] And I have like a million ideas coming out of it. Like the birthday cards is amazing. Having the Thanksgiving recipe book. I am still like, that is amazing. So cool. And I’m imagining, I’m imagining like the hundreds of people with like their food and what they’re saying, what they’re thankful for.
I mean, what a cool moment. You’re doing something really You say giving back, I can tell this is, this is what you’re passionate about. Oh, totally, yeah. And it’s, it’s so cool because, you know, book wise you’re mostly, most of your books seem to be in KU. You’re wide with audio. You’ve published. Well over a hundred books.
I don’t want to intimidate people listening, but
Tonya Kappes: like, My adult, I have four adult males children and they range from 25 to 30. I feel like you could be one of them. They have a countdown to 200. They’re like, we have a countdown to 200. We’re gonna have a party. I’m like, okay.
Michael Evans: It’s, it’s amazing. And it, what I, I’m curious about is like you know, people will [00:21:00] listen to this.
They’ll look at you, look at everything you’ve accomplished. They’ll be like, wow. Okay. How can I, how can I be like Tonya? Right. And you know, you obviously have a huge publishing business to run. Like it is a lot that goes into just managing a backlist because you probably have easily, I mean, well, well over 500 individual products and you count the different formats, right?
How do you find the time to do all of this with your community? I know it seems like an odd question, but when I go to your Patreon you’re posting on average, Oh, it’s day. I would say 20 times a week. Like, you’re posting multiple times a day. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How do you keep up with that and the rest of everything you’re doing?
Tonya Kappes: So first off, I’m super lucky. Like I said, that my husband is on board and he takes care of now. He’s only been on board for a year before and I only have one assistant, but she’s just an assistant that [00:22:00] only dealt that does with my arc team. That’s it. So the rest of their stuff is I don’t have anybody that’s that does the social media and I don’t have anybody that does patrion.
Because, again, I’m the brand. No one can replicate this New York accent.
Replicate, you know, no one can replicate what I am, and I am my brand. As much as, you know, people are like, oh, you know, your brand is, you know, your colors, your brand is, and I’m not. I’m the brand, no one can replicate me, so I make sure I get up in the morning. I’m a meditator. I love meditation.
Yeah, I meditate, I journal, I do all the things, and I exercise in the morning, and I am at, sometimes I will sprint with a friend of mine that has to work. They’re in the day at a day job and away from the office, you know, she’s an office job as well. So she [00:23:00] only has an hour. So I’m like, yeah, I’ll sprint with you at 7 a.
m. And so I’ll do writing sprints with her. And then at 9. 30, I’m at my desk and I run it like a business. As soon as you hit publish, it’s a business. And so I’ve always run it like a business. And as a past therapist for children, and also I was a teacher by trade when I graduated from the first time in college, and then I had 4 boys to raise, you know, that’s a lot of schedules a lot.
And so, and I became a full time author, just continue to run it like that. I continue to keep my schedule. When my kids went off to college, when they now have graduated and have their life and moved out Empty Nest, I continue to run my life like that because I’m still working, you know, as if I would be working at a, at an office job.
So I get dressed in the morning, like I’m going to an office job, I don’t put on my pajamas, and then I sit down and I do my, I write. And from 930 to [00:24:00] 12 and or 1230, and then I’ll have lunch and maybe meditate in the afternoon or do some other kind of quick walk. We live in the middle of the woods. So I will stroll the woods or whatever change over to the business side.
Yeah, I keep a meticulous schedule for Patreon. I will some things I will schedule, you know, out. And a lot of things I will post or, like, before I got on here with you, I did a quick video and put it up there. Also live on there as well. You have the option to be live with them and I love that. So I do that a lot.
And I scheduled that out. So maybe, you know, on Sunday night, you know, when my husband’s, you know, watching my, she loves the show. My, she watches it every night. So maybe when he’s doing that, then I will jump on Patreon and interact, or I will maybe schedule a post [00:25:00] out, but they get. So much information, they get story notes, they get deleted scenes, they get illustrated photos of my couple, they get storyboards that are, that are illustrated, they get you know, they want all the things, they get their own detective files, so as they’re reading the books, they can, you know, share with who they think is you know, Yeah, yeah, it’s very interactive.
We’re a very interactive community over there. And, you know, I’ll say it’s not for everybody. It’s still it’s really for the super fans that don’t just want to have access to me, which is what they get. This is where you get access to me, you know, and the Facebook and all that, you really don’t get the direct access.
So this is where they get the direct access and, and the end of the true. Tanya vibe. And, oh my gosh, where did you come up with that idea? And I’m like, or if I’m walking and, and I also will dictate. And so they get dictations. That’s so [00:26:00] cool. Thanks. So they just get that, like, I’m dictated today. What do y’all think?
Or if my husband’s walking and I’m trying to work out a plot and he’s like, no, he’s an electrician. He doesn’t know anything about killing the people, but I’m like, you know, what about this? And so I’ll like, get his take on it and I’ll upload it. And they think that’s hilarious because we’re like, that is not going to work.
But. So, you know, they’re getting all those insider things that they love and, you know, they’ve seen my mama, they met my mama, sister, you know and they just, you know, think it’s just the best. So the time. I make time for it because I’m passionate about it. Yeah, you love it. So with that I make time for and really it’s not that much time, you know, to get on there and talk for 10 to 15 minutes.
And I can do it while I’m cooking. I can do it while I’m cleaning. I’ve done it while I put up my Christmas tree with them. I’m like, cause it’s just me and my husband. I’m like, Oh, it’s Christmas tree and Chad [00:27:00] about books. You know, it’s just, it’s, it’s that. Now, what I do with my other active platforms you know, like, like, you talked about, like, we talked about Bella, you know, that’s another question that I’m involved in.
Right. Yeah. And then so all the other stuff is pretty easily scheduled, like, all the social media stuff. So really. Patreon to me is my live active moments that I have in the afternoon and I always make time for it every day.
Michael Evans: Oh, that’s, that’s so, you know, it’s the dedication’s amazing. And I love like, like just that you’re doing like what you love to do.
And you mentioned something very interesting about That it’s not for all your fans, it’s for the super fans, the people who want you. I’m curious, like how have you, like, when you initially, because you were also talking about your readership, it’s gotten a little bit younger, but it also skews you know, a bit 50 plus.
And there’s a lot of people in that demographic might not be as familiar with something like a Patreon, right? The [00:28:00] idea of a subscription. I mean, like, we all subscribe to things like KU, but that’s different, you know? How was that
Tonya Kappes: response? So, yeah, so that’s how I started. I was like, well, you look at, look at it like this, like you’re subscribed to ku, right?
Because, so it’s kind of like that. It’s a monthly thing, like when people ask, and so that’s why I made that dollar tier. And you know, I’m getting a fee taken. I’m not even getting a full dollar to give to a charity from them. And that’s okay. Because I made the people like, well, how would you do a dollar term?
Because I just want them to feel like they’re part of the community. They can do the zooms. They can do the book clubs. They’re still getting some content. You know, they’re still getting the free stickers when they join, which they love you know, Yeah, but, you know, they’re not getting the mug and they’re not getting those things.
But but I tell you another thing I do that they know that if and also give out a 5 gift card to everybody that comes to say, because I feel like if they’re giving me their time, then, you know, I have that money set aside. You know, on Patreon as well, but when they come, even the, [00:29:00] the 1 people, they are like, you don’t need to give us a gift card.
I’m like, your time is valuable to me. It’s, I’m impressed that you’re even here for an hour to talk about books or two hours. They tend to, I say they’re going to be an hour long, but they always tend to be like two hours long. And they want more. They’re like, can we do like two or three a month? And I’m like, well, I wish.
So when I talk to re I, I get a lot of older reader says, well, I don’t even know how to do this. How do I, you know, get on here? And I’ve had some daughters that buy the subscription for their moms. Oh yeah. That’s so cool. A man, you know, a few men on there, which is. Fun. And I always call them out.
I’m like, what Leonard tease with them. And so I have a couple of, you know, subscriptions that were purchased for, you know, their from their daughters. And so they’ve been able to contact me and say, you know, it’s, this is [00:30:00] for my mom. I’ve got her set up. This is great. So, but I have walked a lot of readers through.
How to do it and how to get on zoom, you know, how to download zoom and how to get on there. And so I have 1 reader and she’s bedridden and she has a home health nurse that gets her ready every time before zoom. So she’s right there and and ready. And I’m always so happy to see her on there. But, you know, it’s just, taking the time to treat each person as an individual. And when you say their name, like I say, hey, you know, they’re like, oh, she cares about me. And I do care about them, you know, and so when I walk them through it, I want them to know if you’re going to join. I don’t know if you want to join. Come over, hang out, send me a message.
If you want to understand it, I’m more than happy to jump on one of those Facebook call things or they can call without my phone number to chat about how to get [00:31:00] on there. I’m more than happy for them to give me their phone number and call them and say, hey, this is what happens. Sometimes they might actually send a message and you have the ability to do the voice message back.
That freaks them out. They’re like, is this really you? And I’m like, Because I’ll send a voice message and say, hey, you know, it’s easier for me to respond to you instead of type it all out and let me tell you, and this is how you can do it. And then they’re like, oh, my gosh, is this really, you know, you respond?
And I’m like, well, yeah, it’s definitely not unless I can get my voice down. That’d be great. so it’s just. You know, holding their hand and letting them know this isn’t as hard as it looks like. It’s just 80 steps. And that’s how I’ve gotten my older population to join. And if I can’t figure it out, I’ll find a way to figure it out, you know, to help them out.
And so that’s how I got some of the older people to join and to feel [00:32:00] part of the community at that dollar. If I, and now they have the whole free thing. See, back then they didn’t have the free thing. Yeah. So, you know, so now if they want to come over and look around, then they can get a hint, which when the free thing did come up this year my increase after they were free for a while you know, the readership, I think within the first week grew to over a hundred more subscribers that were paying.
Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it’s been
Michael Evans: long. Yeah. No, that’s incredible. And I, oh, there’s a, first of all I can’t wait for you to meet Christopher Hopper. You’re going to love him. He’s another speaker at the summit and he just, yeah, you guys are very like in a great way, very similar. You’re going to get along really, really well.
I just know it. Like, we’ll have to make sure you, you have a chat with him, whether it’s a meal or yeah, yeah, you have to and. You know, the one thing I’m thinking about in this[00:33:00] and I’ve had personal experience with things like this as well, but I’m curious, like, you’re so open with your readers, even giving out like your phone number, which this is totally a Christopher Hopper thing, which is why I say this like in the best way, like he would do that.
Like he would, you know what I mean? Like that, like anything for his readers, anything, it’s the best. Where do you draw a line? Especially because people, obviously, like fangirl, fanboy, however we want to word it, you know, they look up to you.
How do you kind of keep those relationships, like, you’re friends with your readers, but you’re not friends with, you’re not best friends or family with everyone in your Patreon, right? Like, there is somewhat of a line. How do you balance slash manage that when you are someone who enjoys being so open?
Yeah,
Tonya Kappes: So there was only one time that really kind of crossed the line, and I had to address that. And, you know, I am so open for instance, always where I live literally is in the middle of the woods overlooking the Ohio River. I always say, oh, we have a music venue right across the way. That is an open [00:34:00] amphitheater in Cincinnati.
So I’m like, right over from Cincinnati, but not downtown Cincinnati, but moreover where this music venue is. And I’m like, oh, you know, Dave Matthews is here tonight at, you know, river band. And so, you know, I’m like, oh, I live right across the river. That’s great. And I’ll go live and they can hear the music because it’s you can hear all the people.
1 day we’re sitting here in this car pulls up and I have like a car. I have driveway alarms because I have such a long state driveway. I’m like, who’s coming up. But we also have a lot of animals that that. Put off the alarm. So I’m like, Oh, is it really somebody? We have cameras. So, and this car pulls up.
I’m like, who is that? And it was my cousin from my hometown in Lexington, which is two hours away. He and his wife were like, Oh, we just started driving up all the driveways until we found you because you said on Facebook, I live across the river bed. And I’m like, Oh my gosh. But for, you know, and that was kind of a weird thing, but they’re always welcome here.
We just But and then I had a reader [00:35:00] like actually take the coordinates of a photo. Cause I had said, Oh, what is my husband bringing home from Home Depot? And he was like, Oh, according to the coordinates of your photo, it’s the Home Depot. He was at the Home Depot in Crescent Springs, Kentucky, blah, blah, blah.
And I’m like, well, that’s kind of creepy. So I, they the line with that. Was on, you know, Facebook, so that was before Patreon came. So I always have had that boundary of what you’re getting in Patreon. This is what you’re getting from me in Patreon. This is what you’re getting into the tiers and they’ve never really stepped over the bounds.
With me, because the thousands of super fans that I have in that group, it’s so interesting because, you know, when Facebook started, I started and my kids were in elementary school. So they’ve seen my kids grow up. They’ve seen my kids, do the things right? So another thing that was very interesting is my one of my sons is a N.
C. double a basketball [00:36:00] coach for a division. That’s really cool. Yeah. And so he’s like, mom, some people showed up at the game. He kind of hung around and they’re like, oh, wow. I’m a fan of your mom’s and I’m here and, you know, I’m a graduate. So I came to the game and or I’ve been to a game and some of the readers have showed up that’s in Patreon and it’s not that I don’t think that’s really a boundary that’s crossed because you know, I, I love seeing them and a few of the professors, they’re like, Oh, if you ever come, when you get back to Georgia, let me know, because that’s where he’s at.
It’s in Georgia. Let me know. I want to meet up with you. I would love to talk to you. Super fan, you know, and I know your son’s coaching here, blah, blah, blah. And so he, they kind of think it’s weird. And so as they grew up, their boundaries got very clear. I stopped posting pictures, you know, when they got into high school and stopped doing things with them.
So I had to respect their boundaries. But now, as they’ve gotten older, they’re like, well, mom, this is kind of cool because when they were teenagers, like, this is weird. Take me out there. [00:37:00] Don’t put me on there, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Oh, but as Patreon has come along, they’ve been. They’re, they’re paying members that, that are getting the real good content, obviously.
And they respect the boundaries and they’re not expecting any more than what I’m giving them. So what I give them is the boundary. So they’re not going to get the whole house floor, you know, either in the build, you know, I give them the boundaries and they’ve never crossed anything like, Oh, can I come see you?
I give them enough opportunities during the year to meet me in person or to be on zoom. And, you know, quite frankly, I think that they are satisfied with that. But in the phone calls, they’ve never called me through that line. I’ve called them and so you know, they’ve never called me through the line and, you know, it’s not, or if they needed to talk to say, hey, can we have a [00:38:00] chat and I’m like, sure you know, or they’ll say, oh, you know, like I said, we’ve been through divorces.
We’ve been through anxiety. Some of the younger and through depression. And so they know that I have kids their age, so they’ll say, Hey, you know, can we talk? I’m like, sure. And I was a therapist, so I don’t, you know, listening to them and talking to them and, and just, you know, I don’t ever give advice or anything.
They just sometimes need a sounding ear outside of their own families or, or their own husbands or, you know, their own children or something. So it’s nothing that they demand then. So I’ll say, Oh, yeah, let’s talk tomorrow at two, you know, I’ve got 15 minutes or something, so I said, yeah, and they respect that, you know, wow,
Michael Evans: that’s, I love it.
It’s so, you know, it’s really cool. And it’s really nice to hear that they haven’t crossed that line. And I think that’s. Important like when, [00:39:00] if you’re going to be so open with your readers to do it in a place that you have a degree of control over putting that up just on Facebook where anyone can see it.
I mean, like, you know, we can introduce some things, so it makes a ton of sense. And I know recently you actually opened up a new tier, right? A book box tier.
Tonya Kappes: It was just this today. So we, we knew it was going to go out today and we had planned it. And the reason why we did that tier is because I had had such a big subscription, like I said before, and book boxes even before the pandemic were not very popular.
That was another thing, like how am I going to get on board with this? So it wasn’t just that, but I had also it was a couple of hundred book boxes. That was pretty good income. And also I had a lot of my girlfriends and that are authors donate. You know, they’re booked. Yeah. And so that was a big thing [00:40:00] for me to do and that was because I was a subscription for the Brenda Novak book boxes and I’m like, oh, I don’t think anybody’s doing this for cozy.
I can do this for cozy. Right? And so that’s how I got, I was getting, I get hers. And so I’m like, I can do this for my readers too. And so I and, and romance authors are the best to get marketing tips from, which is who I go to are just, what are romance authors doing? And how can I make that for, you know, cozy?
And so I started doing those book boxes back then. And then again, like I said earlier, the pandemic had stopped that. And so now we’re at a place to where, you know, I only want to do the quarterly book boxes and readers. So I send quarterly envelopes through my top tier, the 25 tier. And so they also get every single book in print as well.
If they want it, some people opt out of it, which I’m like, okay, they just want to be in that top tier. And [00:41:00] so, people are like, oh, I wish I had, you know, you were doing the book boxes again, or, you know, we’d be on zoom and I keep hearing it over and over for the past, you know, probably 6 or 7 months. And so we’re like, okay, we’re going to start on January.
So, we put it out today and we limit it because I think when you limit it. Not only does it create buzz, but also it helps us get it off the ground and I’m overwhelmed which I don’t want to be overwhelmed, you know, with it because then um, because I actually did open up a hundred dollar author tier where I was.
Working with authors and I got freaked out when I had so many authors sign up and I gave all their money back and I’m like, I’m not ready for that yet, you know, be a teacher and I didn’t, I thought it might be like a handful of people, but it was like 25 people immediately signed up as soon as the email went out and I mean, it was like within an hour and I freaked and I was [00:42:00] like, Oh, I don’t want to do this right now.
So I didn’t, yeah. And they’re like, okay, well, we’re all here when you’re ready. I’m like, okay. Because they just wanted to do about marketing. It wasn’t about, you know, how to do Patrion or anything like that. It was just a marketing tier. Which I did previous back in 2014. After I’d been self publishing for a while, I went around and teaching in writer groups, how to self publish.
And I had had a book about marketing. So anyways, back to what we’re talking about. That’s, The reason why I had opened that tier. And so today, before I got on here, I looked and I think that there were only five spots left at that book box. So I’m like, wow, I didn’t realize that a lot of people were as interested as they were.
So we want to get back into that. Because I love, I love getting book boxes and if I love it, I think they’re going to love it.
Michael Evans: Oh yeah. No, totally. I’m Just looking now you have four left. So another person has [00:43:00] jumped in during this call already. Thanks. Probably by the end of the day, you’re going to have none.
If I’m, probably. That’s amazing. So,
Tonya Kappes: I haven’t even announced it to the world. It’s just to them.
Michael Evans: Just you just post it. That’s all just that one post on Patreon has done all of this. Yeah. Wow. That’s yeah, that’s pretty
Tonya Kappes: incredible limited to 50, you know, so
Michael Evans: yeah, but that’s still like it’s a lot. Yeah, that’s.
That’s incredible. And so in the book box, so it’s gonna be each quarter they’re paying 50 a month. What do they, what do they get in that? And then how are you handling? This is always the question with book boxes, right? How are you handling the shipping for it in terms of like international versus I know you’re in the United States.
So how, how are you doing? That is
Tonya Kappes: international as well. So we have our own like little part of our house. We have an unused storage area. Well, it’s not unused. It’s got all the stuff in it. So my husband is now in charge [00:44:00] of not only all the advertising, all the book, you know, all the book matter and all the print.
books and all those kind of things that we send out. He is also now in charge of all shipping, shipping and fulfilling of the 50 book boxes.
Michael Evans: Wow, that’s a job. That’s a, that’s a
Tonya Kappes: job. We have all the things downstairs. I’ve been, of course, getting all things and I haven’t looked into like, I know Flagship does a lot of things so I haven’t looked into all that stuff yet, but I have a feeling that we’ll grow quicker than this.
In the next coming months, so I have to look and start doing some kind of partnerships or some things like that. And I have been approached by various people like, for doing different things, maybe on Instagram and becoming, you know, sponsors for stuff like that. So this is a way to open up that door, but not on , the social media platforms, but to do more of the book box.
things and so we also have our own like, you know, stamps. com here and the post [00:45:00] office will come and they’ll pick up all the boxes here at my house and yeah, so this it’ll be the exact same way we did previous. The back, same set up, I’ll have it all, he’ll have it all stamped.com. We have boxes already with our, our logos and things on it.
And you know, of course all the things, the mystery things is what they love. So you know, we always get special mystery things that they can get. As well as the inaugural one will be, of course, a mug and different mugs too. And it’s not just a Tonya Kappa stuff. Like, it’s, it’s all sorts of different things that, that they really enjoy to get as a cozy mystery reader.
So, all the stuff.
Michael Evans: No, you got it. That’s those are the, those are the best book boxes. Yeah. And it gets me thinking, because I know you also are doing a book club, which isn’t exclusive to Cozy Mysteries, but you do, you do book clubs inside. We do. Yeah, how, how is that going? And I was wondering because [00:46:00] I’m just thinking like, is there a way to tie in the book clubs with the book boxes?
I don’t know. Like, I’m just thinking out loud right now. I feel like
Tonya Kappes: there’s something. That is something that we have noodled around. And so we did, so what we do is we’ll pick a book or they’ll suggest a book and we vote on it. So whatever book wins is the book. And I do reach out to the author and I say, Hey, we would love to have you, you know, join us.
And so if they can, they join us. They’re like, Oh my gosh, yeah, I would love to join your Patreon. And so outside of that, a few of the other Cozy Mystery authors and a couple other authors has started Patreon because they came in my group and they’re like, Wow, I did not know this is a whole thing. And I’m like, yeah.
You know, and so they always ended up having more questions than we had about the book, but it’s a life of its own. So, we do they pick the book, they suggest it and then I just put up one of those polls and the thing, whichever one they pick goes. And we come up I usually come up with a lot of the questions or I’ll say, you have [00:47:00] any questions or what do you think would be a good question, you know, message me or put it in this comment because a lot of times I don’t want to comment, but they want to have an opinion.
So, and a lot of people don’t want to show their face on zoom. So I’m like, you don’t have to show your face. You don’t have to talk, just show up, and you can talk just through the camera. You don’t have to show your face at all on Zoom. And so, we just have all sorts of ways that they can participate. And they, again, it all boils down to being part of the community and being heard.
And, wow, they’re going to pick my book for a book club. And it just so happens that I also have an Amazon book club. So whenever we pick on book club, I also put on my Amazon book club. So my people that follow me over there and I think I have like 900 members on that and it’s kind of the same question.
So they know if they don’t come to the zoom book club, they can pop over to the Amazon book club and see all the questions and kind of participate there. So you know, we do try to give things that are free. And, you know, like I said, if you aren’t in the zoom. If you’re in the free part of Patreon and want to [00:48:00] participate in book club, you can do that on the Amazon book club, but you don’t get the zoom with me and the personal personal thing there.
So, we have that and like I said, the authors love to come and a lot of times I say, oh, can I send them off something? Like, you don’t want to send out 1000 something no, just your presence is the best. Just come over. We enjoyed your book, you know. Now, we have had one time when we did not enjoy the book.
None of us liked the book. We couldn’t even finish the book. So, we went to the book club because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Michael Evans: Oh,
Tonya Kappes: yeah, yeah, having the zoom, uh, but we just didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. And so other than that, it’s you know, everybody has an opinion and when you get a lot of people together like that, it’s a lot of opinions, but all respectful opinions, which I love.
aNother thing that’s been interesting is that I have paranormal cozies and [00:49:00] I have straight cozies. So some of my Patreons will not read paranormal cozies, you know. Yeah, yeah. So some of them don’t want to participate in those book clubs, and that’s okay, you know. That’s just part of us all living together with all our different you know, our differences and being accepted.
With all our differences and we love that so book club is really fun, but they, I think would rather do just a monthly. Hey, how’s everybody doing? Let’s play some games. We play online. Bingo
Michael Evans: wordles too, right?
Tonya Kappes: Wordle. Yeah, every, every month they get a planner, a printable planner that I make. For the month, and it has inside a, not only like a real calendar and real weekly planner sheets, but they also get a reader planner each month to track their reader things because Patreon, they’re [00:50:00] also very active in reader groups.
Oh, yeah, and they like to do reader challenges. So it’s a way to keep that. So I mean, there’s, they get bookmarks every week. And that they can print they get cozy mystery readers love cross stitching and they love doing all the art. So they get every cross stitch pattern from every book that cover in a cross stitch that I have commissioned they love it all.
They just get it all. If I can make it and get it made, they’re getting it.
Michael Evans: Yeah, you are. That’s such a good. I love the reading planner idea and having, giving something so that makes it just easy to engage with their rest of their reading life. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s brilliant. And you, yeah, you’ve shared so much amazing insights here that I’m curious, like, if I’m maybe just looking at a star description.
What would, just looking to build a community of my readers, right, [00:51:00] just kind of listening and being like, wow, I want to do this. What would be your advice to another author who’s looking to get started on maybe a similar, but their own version, obviously, of the path that you’ve done?
Tonya Kappes: So I’ve had a lot of people that have done that.
And I’ll say, you know, join my group and I’ll refund you your money, but join it and look at it and see what I’m doing. And actually, the best way to get started so you’re not overwhelmed is to just grab an empty calendar and put on there, like, things that you might think you want to share, like a character post you know, all the things again, like, a lot of romance readers give as a newsletter signups and things like that and a recipe.
You know, there’s it’s easy to make a recipe or to make 1 of your recipes into a recipe card as a download and see what you can come up with. And I would come up with, like, 31 topics and. Then say that you [00:52:00] put them on, you know, a calendar of 31 days, then the next month, do another character on that same day, and then do another recipe that same day.
So rinse and repeat and do it the same day or do it, you know, a couple of days or 3 days. Well, another thing going back to my niece that introduced me to this platform, she’s like, I’m 26 now. And she’s like, you do way more on Patreon than people do. Yeah, yeah. People, so much content. Because I’m always looking at my kids.
Because they’re young, right? And I’m like, what do you think about the Patreon? Look at the Patreon. You’re in Patreon. What is your people doing? And she’s like, you give way more. Like, that is like really awesome, Antonia. That you’re giving, you know, all this content. And it’s great. You know, people love it.
And so, I always tell people, don’t do What I do, I’m from the south. We feel like when you come in, we have got an intimate cake waiting on the table for you. A pot of coffee. [00:53:00] The door is open. Come on in. We’re going to give it to you all. We’re going to make you dinner. We’re going to make you supper. You know, we’re going to do if you’re here at dinnertime, which is noon to us.
Yeah, and then you’re gonna suffer that night. So like, I just feel like if they’re paying, I’m going to give it all to them, you know, but don’t, you don’t have to be like that. I mean, you know, even. The other cozy mystery authors that are on there now, they might post just once or twice a week, you know, and they’re not given all the things I give just start out really small you know, do a 5 dollar tier.
I would not suggest doing a 1 dollar tier unless they’re specifically. What I do is like with the charity, it’s really not worth their time. If they’re just going to have a bunch of people at 1, that’s, you know, I’m not, I wasn’t in it for the money. You know, the money just kind of followed it. Which was been nice.
Cause we haven’t talked about that, but you know, it’s been nice because my husband early retired, he’s 54 and he [00:54:00] early retired at 35 years. So it’s nice to have an income that actually. Takes over for his income, right? And so, but it was never, never that. So I always say to people, it’s a slow build.
And if you’re a cozy mystery author, it’s a really slow build. Because you have to be, you know, you have to be available to explain it. So I would say, you know, just make a few content posts that readers in our genre or your genre love. And make content. Because it’s only content posts. It’s not like, it’s nothing like Facebook.
Like, it’s strictly deep dive content stuff. It’s not in the books and it’s exclusive, right? So somebody asked me this week that same question. She goes, is it like Facebook or do you just do all content? And I said, oh, I do all content. And she goes, oh, I’m not there yet. And I’m like, oh, well, then you’re not ready.
So you know, that’s kind of the way I would [00:55:00] say at least 3 days a week. And certain content and something that can only get there maybe 1st, like, if you want to write your books, you know, put up your chapters kind of. Oh, I’m sorry. That is because every. I call it my magical, shiny moment, and it just I do 3 or 4 of those a day to.
Remind me to be grateful from here. So anyway, sorry. We’re grateful you’re here. So anyways, what happened is that I would tell them, you know, look at your genre, see what content, you know, your readers would love that would be exclusive. So like on Ream, you know, people are putting out their chapters one at a time.
That’s special content they’re getting before the books come out or whatever it is. You know, for my readers, a lot of them are there to read. The series of the holiday series before it comes out because that’s, you know, at that 5 level, that’s getting and that’s what they want. So I would say [00:56:00] something that’s special to them and only post, you know, 2 or 3 times a week, but make the tears enough to where they feel like.
It’s worth their time to
Michael Evans: totally agree that like a set of fantastic advice that I I fully agree with and i’m curious. Two last questions, which one is how long did it take? You know, you said slow like it’s a slow build, right? How like what was it? Like when you watched did you see? Tons of people flooded which for context like obviously tony has done really well before starting Patreon’s been doing this for a very long time, but even with that What was that slow build like for you?
And then now what portion of your overall publishing income publishing revenue comes from your Patreon?
Tonya Kappes: Okay. That’s a lot of questions. So we’ll take it one at a time. Yeah. So I was, I was [00:57:00] fairly surprised when I first did it the first day out and another thing I would say to somebody, cause this was a mistake, I’m like, Oh, I’m going to start this.
I started this thing and here’s the tears. And then all of a sudden a hundred people joined and I’m like, but there’s nothing there yet. It was crickets. Like I had nothing there for them to look at. So I would tell people to go in and put things up before you make it go live so they have something that they can start feasting on.
Right? Totally. It’s something I learned. So I was not you know, so then after that, that was the initial push and I’m like, whoa, I have something here. Right? Yeah. But then the more I talk to people like, Yeah. Are you kidding me? You’re charging for extra content. You know, you’re charging for us to read about this.
And yeah, I kind of got a little bit of pushback since then they’ve become Patreons and I’m like, Oh, it’s okay. You know, [00:58:00] it’s, it, you stay right here on Facebook. It’s not for everybody. And I, I recognize that. And I have said from the very beginning, it is only people who want direct access to me, who want to be super fans, who want all the things.
It’s right. Yeah, like I have a secondary character. That’s a smoker. That’s horrible, right? But who cares? They love these little candy. These are smoking lipsticks that they get their little cigarette lipsticks and they love it. And so those are like, the content, like, oh, this is the kind of stuff you’re going to get when you come over, you know, all these little things that are hilarious to your favorite secondary character.
Right? And so you know, and not just the gifts and I’m not begging them to come over. It’s just the community part is what I focus on. You know, come over for the community. You know, we had the community in our group. I’d stopped the Facebook group because I was not going to I just felt like Facebook was and [00:59:00] again, that’s why I left.
The group and deleted everybody in this thriving group because I didn’t want to have a group in Facebook. If something went south and I got kicked off, then I wanted a place where I know that I’m not going to get kicked off. And this is where I’m at and you know, if this was a fun ride over the last 10 years, and you want to keep going, then let’s head on over here and keep going.
I’ll still be on Facebook and you can still reach me here, but not as available. So that is kind of what I’ve stuck to and so the initial hit and then as the years went on, because again, I started it during the pandemic when people were holding on to their money and kind of losing their jobs.
But then, as we’ve kind of climbed out of that, my readership or my Patreon membership over there, the community is what I call it. Has just [01:00:00] we call it the southern sleuths. So it has just grown exponentially, you know, into the thousands. And I, and I love that they’re there. So as a form of income, the income is pretty good, but I also give away a lot.
Yeah. And, you know, 5 gift cards for everybody every month and, you know, charities and things. So it’s not about the money for me. And a lot of people open up subscriptions to have the money to, and but it all feeds into my machine. Right. And so it’s nice. But I still rely on my books to bring my income.
So I would say outside of it’s pretty up there with audio books. I would say For my book, I would say about 70%. And so I would say, like, almost it’s a little bit more than audio books, about 20 percent and would come from Patreon and say, and that’s a pretty good. You know [01:01:00] um, with everything else I have my pot, my hands in.
Michael Evans: That’s wow. That’s really, that’s really, really great to hear. And I. It very very interesting to hear on like the launching and then like learning that Oh, I should get sticking there because you’re right like the first impression is really important And if there’s nothing there, I bet you probably had a few people messaging or they’re like, what what is this?
Yeah, what’s odd?
Tonya Kappes: What are we doing? I mean, i’m like what are we doing over here, you know, like They knew that we’re getting the book in that top tier, but what about those other three tiers below what am I getting? And I really only had the one dollar tier the five dollar tier and the twenty five dollar tier And so I introduced the 10 tier this year to go in between.
So I’m like, oh, yeah, that’s a big leap to go from 5 to 25. That’s a big jump for me. So you know, that’s when I created the 10 tier at the beginning of the year. And, but still that 25 tier [01:02:00] always sells out the quickest. And every year I up it just a little bit more and a little bit more and I, because a lot of times I’ll say, I do keep a cap on a lot of them was again, the factor of, oh, I want to be part of this club.
Why can’t I get in this club? When are you going to open up this tier? That I can only handle so much
Michael Evans: yeah, you’re you’re one person, right? Well, you’ve got your husband and you’ve got this is but you’re you yourself are one person. So yeah
Tonya Kappes: Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun and entertaining and you know, we have seen it grow into It’s own thing.
And so I love that. And so that’s another thing. Like, I know that you guys do Ream and I talked to Amelia about it at our mastermind and the thought of like, Oh, that’s kind of cool. And I thought, Oh, I could do both. And I mean, I got like that proactive and I’m like, Oh my gosh, trying to get one person to move to another subscription would [01:03:00] be a nightmare.
Yeah. Oh, you know, I entertain it. You never know what I’ll be doing. It’s,
Michael Evans: it definitely is the actual migration when you have a big, a big one is, is a lot of work. We typically, when we work with authors with above a hundred people, paid members, we, we do it for them and that helps a lot. But if it wasn’t for that, if it was all on you, yeah, it, you know, we’re, we’re happy to help.
But if we weren’t helping, it would be very hard. Amelia had to do it
Tonya Kappes: herself. Let’s say, now this is what we’re
Michael Evans: doing.
Tonya Kappes: Yeah, yeah, so and but you know, they They’ve been amazing, you know, and i’m i’m truly honored that someone would even pay for my crazy Things,
Michael Evans: you know, well, no, I mean I I get the feeling but also you have done so much for your readers and they deserve it but you also deserve the love that you get in return because I Yeah, just after listening to you.
I think it’s [01:04:00] something that it’s funny you said, like, don’t do what I do. I think a lot of people aren’t able to do what you’re doing because it’s just so much in a beautiful way. But also I feel like you’re something great for people to strive for because to be able to be that caring for your readers and be that focused on putting your readers first, I think it’s like what this is about.
You know, we are in publishing to create great stories for, yeah, ourselves. We like love our stories, hopefully, but also for our readers and that’s what it all goes back to. Your community is incredible and I would love as our very very final question for you to share with us Where can we find your kitty?
Where can we find you? Because I know if people listen, they’re probably like I’ve got to check this out
Tonya Kappes: Well, you know, I’m everywhere. I just go anywhere, you know I have obviously on patreon and it’s all under Tanya cappers books. I am on Instagram. I’m on tick tock. I’m on Facebook and my Facebook community is still very thriving.
It’s I mean, I have 41, 000 followers there and they you know, [01:05:00] again, are older, older people, but I’m also seeing those younger kids. Like my kids are going back, they’re kind of leaving the tick tock and they’re kind of leaving and they’re kind of hanging out on the Facebook again. I’m like, what is.
This and so you know, so I’m still there and also on my website and then I haven’t put out a newsletter twice a week.
Michael Evans: That’s great. That’s amazing. Well, it sounds
Tonya Kappes: crazy when I say that. I’m like, Oh,
Michael Evans: it’s a lot. Yeah. That’s why I was like earlier. I was like, how do you do it all? Which I mean, you know, disciplined and being passionate are two.
It’s a beautiful combination, but definitely go to the links, the description check out everything. Tonya’s doing it’s it’s just I’m so excited. We got to talk with you And so excited to get to meet you soon. So thank you so much for coming on You
Tonya Kappes: know, I have to say when you guys and came out with your award show and nominated for this award I told them and they just went crazy
It’s so [01:06:00] You guys and they I put that in a post and so they were very excited. So you got them very excited. So we thank you and thank you for what you’re doing for authors. You know, it’s kind of a lonely world out there and that authors really don’t know that they that there’s the service that there’s we now have options to get off these social medias.
And meet readers that are eager to read more of your work and to find you and to connect with you on these platforms that, you know, haven’t been there for us. And it’s just a new, amazing thing. And you’re, you and Amelia are bringing that to all the authors and shedding the light on that. And we thank you for that too.
Michael Evans: Well, the dream. I’m so grateful to be able to do this. And, you know, it’s, if it wasn’t for people like you who are actually doing it and doing incredible things there would, there would be no stories for us to talk about. So [01:07:00] it’s, it’s incredible to see what you’ve accomplished, and I hope it inspires y’all listening.
Thank you again, everyone for being here.
Okay, thank you again for listening to this episode. I’m sorry that my voice like cracked in the middle. I I have a cold right now, and I feel like halfway through this podcast episode, internally, I was like dying like, you know, like, you know when you just feel like, I am a walking ball right now, I need to like curl up, I felt that like, you know, halfway through the podcast, nothing to do with podcast, Tanya, like, she’s amazing.
It was just like me in that moment. So if you like are watching the video version or you heard me and you’re like, is this man okay? I am perfectly fine. I was having a great time. But unfortunately just, you know, holiday cold. I don’t know what to call it, but I’m sick. It’s, it’s finals. It’s that time of year.
The semester will be over with college very, very shortly. But Sadly, this podcast is also going to be over very shortly, might even be over now if you’re listening to this and you’re like, Jesus, I’ve heard enough of, heard enough of him for the last hour, but seriously, I [01:08:00] am so grateful for having Tonya on with this.
It’s sometimes intimidating to hear when someone is doing something so different from what a lot of us feel might be our nature, like not all of us want to put ourselves out there like Tonya, but we can create something to help you because I firmly believe the principles that Tonya is doing. Right?
Like, the principles underlying her caring for her readers, her building community. You can do the same things and put your own spin on it. But how do you put your own spin on it? The answer is author personas. It’s a free quiz to help you discover the persona that you should have leading your community.
And the spoiler alert is that four to the five personas aren’t actually you. As like, your personal life, or you as your personality. It’s your characters. It’s your expertise, if you’re a lapis. It’s your worlds, if you’re a moonstone. Or, it’s a fictionalized persona of yourself. Treating yourself as an author as if you’re a character.
You might not even show your face if you’re an obsidian. Tonya, I think, is an amazing pearl. We love our pearls. She shines so brightly. And it was incredible chatting with her. But I just wanted to remind you that there’s an awesome [01:09:00] quiz for you to take with amazing resources that only takes five minutes.
And it can help you if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed. Because I know we’ve gotten feedback before when we do podcasts to people like Tonya. People, half of you are like inspired. They’re like, I want to be like Tonya. And like, Game on like we love you, and I’m glad you’re inspired, but another half of you might feel like what do I do?
That sounds uncomfortable to me and the answer is you have to make it comfortable for yourself And we want to help you do that so take the author personas quiz. It’s linked in the description otherwise You all are the best. Have an amazing rest of your day, and I can’t believe this is one of our last podcasts of the year, but the podcast feed is probably like super full right now because we’re dropping not only a number of podcasts this month, but I’m dropping a series of short audios that is called 21st Century Storyteller and there’s a lot of things going on, so I apologize that your feed is full.
I’m very grateful that you made it to this podcast episode of the feed and spent your time listening. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Y’all rock, and don’t forget, Storytellers rule the [01:10:00] world.