49: Emee Estacio: The Road from Academia to Self-Publishing Strategist
This podcast episode is part of our course creator series where I'm chatting with ordinary course creators, just like you. We’re talking about their journey in their online course business, how they got started, the challenges they've experienced, and how they overcame them. These are real discussions with real people.
In this episode, you’ll hear Emee Estacio’s journey from a university lecturer who walked away from academia to pursue online entrepreneurship. She started her journey with writing self-help books and then created an online course that helps aspiring authors write and self-publish books on Amazon.
Learn how she found the courage to walk away from a stable job to pursue online entrepreneurship. Emee says she can't put a price on where she is now. She absolutely enjoys what she is doing now (i.e., teaching) while at the same time she has the freedom to spend quality time with family because of the flexibility online course creation brings.
Mentioned In This Episode
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to The Course Creator's MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destini Copp. In this podcast, we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. But before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my Course in a Box program, which helps you create your revenue generating course in less than a week. Course in a Box is on the AppSumo marketplace at a special deal and the link for Course in a Box on AppSumo is in our show notes.
New Speaker (00:28):
And today we're in the middle of a course creator series where I'm chatting with ordinary course creators, just like you. We're talking about their journey and their online course business, how they got started, the challenges they've experienced and how they overcame them. These are real discussions with real people and let's get started.
New Speaker (00:47):
Today I have a special guest with me today. I have Emee Estacio. Emee is a number one best selling author, psychologist, and founder of Self-publishing Made Simple. She helps successful entrepreneurs, coaches and visionaries expand their reach by writing and publishing books on the world's largest online book, retailer, Amazon through her online programs and signature 12 week get it done challenge. She guides her students through the self-publishing process to successfully launch a book on Amazon, even without a publicist.
New Speaker (01:27):
Emme thank you so much for being here with me today.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Thank you for having me, Destini. I'm so excited to share my story with your audience.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
I'm very excited about your story, just so the audience knows you and I chatted a few minutes before we got started here. We have so much in common. I love your story, your background, and I'm super excited to walk through this with you today. So, but before I begin on all the questions I have for you, could you tell the audience a little bit about you and what you do?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I think, yes, of course. As you've mentioned earlier, I am a psychologist. I'm an author, and now I am a self publishing launch strategist and they help aspiring authors. Most of them are actually online entrepreneurs and they use their books as a way to why then their reach and expand their audience and generate warm leads through their books on Amazon. So it's something that I absolutely love. As a psychologist, I have an academic background I'm actually used to teaching and supervising research and getting my students to actually write big pieces of work. So this writing and publishing aspect of my, of my business actually merges well with what I used to do as a university lecture, but now exploring the online space and the impact that my students are having for, you know, through their, and, and with their clients because they have written their books and just absolutely amazed at how much a tiny book can touch so many people's lives.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So Emee we were chatting before and you have you and I have a very similar background as, as my audience may know, or some of them may know I'm also a college university marketing professor kind of not doing that as much anymore and moved into online entrepreneurship, just like you. So tell me a little bit about why you made that shift or that change in your career. What were you feeling? What was going on?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, it's a little bit complicated Destini because as a child I've always been kinetically inclined. Maybe that's why I ended up in the university, you know, in the academic setting, because that is my comfort zone. I am comfortable in doing research. I'm comfortable with books and, and teaching and so on. So for me, that was the only path that I knew. I understood the how to work in that context. And as you can imagine, it's quite scary to actually move out of that, of that comfort zone because that's so familiar. That's all I've known in my life, but I have to say when my son was born and I'm sure know many moms and under many parents can actually relate to this, when you have a child, your priorities will start to shift. And for me, that's when I realized that, Hey, hang on a second.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
You know, I'm actually spending a lot of time doing things that don't really matter to me anymore. As a university lecturer, I actually wanted to be an academic to teach. I love psychology. I love doing research and I love supervising students, but the bulk of my work as a university lecturer ended up doing a lot of admin tasks. Like it was a marking examining you know, filling forms. And it just became a huge chunk of paperwork, which I thought, look, I didn't actually sign up for this. It's not really giving me so much pleasure anymore. On top of that. I suppose some, some of your audience will relate to this, those in the corporate setting, or maybe even in theater sports, you know, it, it happens everywhere, but there's a little bit of politics happening in the background as well. And that's actually not very pleasant.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And I thought to myself, look, I cannot handle this much drama. It's stressing me out. It's not worth my time. It's not worth my effort. And actually it's taking time away from me, you know, instead of spending time with my son to see him grow and, and, and be there during these small, you know, that this is a short time when he's a child. So I've made that decision. It's scary at first. And yeah, I I've decided to set up my own business and, and move on from academia. I have to I have to say it was scary at first, but I had to overcome that fear sort out what I have to sort out and I just went for it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So I, I love what you're saying there, it was scary at first, but you, you know, you basically took the plunge and said, you know, this is going to be the best thing for me. Long-Term. And, and now tell, tell me how you feel now in your, you know, in, in what you're doing now as an online entrepreneur, how have things changed for you by making that, that change in, you know, going down that new path?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Absolutely. I have to say when they went out of academia, it's almost as if my eyes were open and it's like, Oh my goodness, this is the real world I can be or what they've been missing. And it's, it's, there's, there was just so much growth and development for me, as soon as I left, because when I was in academia, I had the skillset, I had the qualifications, I have the experience and it felt as if I stagnated at some point, because I was just doing the same things over and over again. But when I left that space and I had to learn these things in the, in the online space, becoming an entrepreneur, I just expanded my skillset. And it's just absolutely amazing. You know, the people like I need interesting people, like you, there's been just some amazing people with amazing stories.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And I have to say, since I, since I moved away from that space, I regain so much more freedom and it gave me so much more health and wellbeing. I have to say just before I left, I did experience postnatal depression. I was suicidal at some point, you know, that's one of the reasons why I also left because I was thinking to myself, why am I putting myself in so much distress at the risk of losing my life? You know, my son losing his mother, it's not worth it. I mean, it was going to benefit from that. So now that I left, I just have this increased sense of autonomy, this freedom, you know, I can, I can use my time, how I see fit. I am developing my skills and I feel that I have, I am having a more impact because as I help my clients, get their books done and, and reach their clients and help and serve the people that they want to serve, I feel as if I'm making that contribution.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
And it's so real. And I just absolutely love it. And one of the things that I would like to share as well, destiny is because I left my job. I was also given the, the opportunity, the, the, the, the opportunity to actually leave the country that I was in, you know, I was based in the UK for 18 years. And the only reason I couldn't leave was because I had a job, but now with, with what happened with COVID and with Brexit and all that, we just managed to pack our bags and go somewhere sunnier. Now we are in Greece, if not for my, for the freedom that online entrepreneurship gave me, I would be stuck in a position that would make me miserable, and that would have a ripple effect on my relationships as well. But because of the increased autonomy and freedom that I got from being an online course great, or it just gave me the freedom and the satisfaction, the wellbeing that, that it has given me, it's just priceless.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I love that Emee. And I want to take a little bit of a step back and unpack some of the stuff that you mentioned there and really dig into the timeline. Could you tell me, you know, how long you were in your academic role and then when, when you decided to leave and made a very good decision to leave how long did it take you to make that transition and walk us through the timeline a little bit. I want folks to understand how long does this process take?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Sure. essentially I started working in the university context since my undergraduate years, you know, I was a research assistant that was around the late nineties. So just that's accurately showing my age a little bit. I did start early with my university training. I was 15 years old when I started my training, but I was in that academic work context since the late nineties became an editorial assistant in the early 2000. And they got my research fellowship. Shortly after I did I, I finished my PhD in 2008 and got my lectureship in 2009 and left in 2018. So that's the timeline. I, I officially left it 2018, but I started organizing my exit plan in 2017. I gave birth to my son in 2015. So I had that two year period wherein I just really experienced postnatal depression. It was prolonged.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I suppose I also struggled with my return from maternity leave. I felt as if I was doing everything halfway when I'm at work, I feel as if I'm missing out so much with my you know, with, with the time with my son, but when I'm at home, I feel as if there's too much work that I'm missing out. So yeah, that cost me a lot of stress, a lot of tension to the point, as I mentioned earlier, that, that I suicidal at some point from 2015 to 2017 and in 2017, I said, that's enough. I can't continue with this anymore. And that's when I started my exit strategy and you officially left in 2018.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So tell me a little bit more about that exit plan, that exit strategy. What did you do? What did it look like? W how did you go about that process? Did you hire a mentor or coach, or did you take online courses? What exactly did you do for that exit plan?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I initially I wanted to practice because I'm a psychologist, so I can actually practice as a psychologist, but before I can do that, I told myself, look, I need to be very clear about the strategies and techniques that I can offer and that I will use with my clients. So that's how I ended up writing my first book. Actually, I wanted to be very clear about the approach that I will take when it comes to helping people, for example, change old habits or helping people overcome fear or overcome imposter syndrome. So that's when the idea of writing first came along because really it was for me to give myself a bit of clarity to compile everything that I know in that I can use for my 20 plus years of background in psychology and, and share that with the masses.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
The only thing is, although I have a I am traditionally published, as I mentioned earlier, I, I am an academic. I have a, I have a publisher who published my research papers and textbooks. And so on my gut feeling was that I shouldn't really go down the traditional publishing route because self-publishing will enable me to reach my audience better with the traditional publishing route. It will take me about a year and a half, two years, if I'm lucky to get the book out, whereas with self publishing, I hit the publish button on Amazon, and the book is out in four hours. So I've decided to take that route, write my books, and self-publish on Amazon. The only trouble is I haven't got a clue. I haven't got a clue how that works. It's like, yeah, I know my stuff. I know how to write.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I know how to, to write a book, but I haven't got a clue how to turn it into a book and publish it on Amazon. So I educated myself. I, I bought a book and, and learn from, from blogs online and so on. And I came across my mentor who taught me most of the things that I know about self publishing. She guided me through that process. And the very first book that I changed your life for good. I had zero social media followers. And I actually outranked him various, you know, I got to the number one spot and I'll track the amazing Tim Ferris of the charts. So it's just absolutely amazing. You know, I was buzzing and because my imposter syndrome was kicking in, I said, Oh, you know, maybe I just got lucky, you know, maybe it's beginner's luck.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
So I did the second book repeated the process, got the same result, got the number one best seller on Amazon. I repeated it again. Third book, same process got the number one best seller. And that's when people just started to know this. And it wasn't really my intention to create a course on writing and self publishing a book on Amazon. But people were asking me the same questions, like any, how did you do it? I know that you're not, you're not really active on social media. You know, in fact, I was very new on this book at that time. The only reason why I set up a Facebook account is because I wanted to connect with other authors, but yeah, people started asking me and that's how I started self publishing needs simple, which is what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I love that. I'd love to know more about the self-publishing as you know we chatted beforehand. I'm in the process of writing my book. I'm actually pretty much done with it. It's ready to go to the editor. So I'm interested in, in learning more about that. Could you walk folks through, let's just say, let's just say that they have a book idea. What steps would you kind of suggest that they would begin with? Or where would they start to get that book off the ground?
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Sure. Yeah. So many authors will have this spark of an idea, like, Oh, I want to write a book. And some of them, they just immediately jump in and start writing. I would encourage you. Yeah, go ahead. If you have that spark, go ahead and do that. However, what I've noticed with some authors is that sometimes that fire, you know, goes away after a couple of weeks, once real life start to happen and other priorities kick in, they would say to themselves, Oh, you know, it's not, you know, it's just a dream. It's a, you know, I'll, I'll get to that. When, when they find the spare time. So what they would recommend to those who are thinking about writing a book, amazing, you know, that's, that's great. That's great to have that, that spark, but you really need to set the foundations right before you start writing your book, made sure that your mindset is in the right space.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Clarify your purpose. Why are you writing your book? What are the personal benefits that you will get from writing your book? Will it, will it help you grow your business? Is this a lifelong dream? How will it help your clients? How will it help your readers? How will it actually impact on society in general? So first the floor, first of all, clarify your purpose, gain the right mindset, and also really important that you need to allocate the time for it. You need to set aside time for it. Otherwise this, this project will just carry on for, for a very long time, because if you're going to tell yourself, I'm just going to write it during my spare time. Well, as in all that spare time, it's actually quite hard to find. So you need to allocate the time you need to dedicate and block the time for writing your book and get yourself an accountability buddy, a mentor, a coach, to make sure to hold you accountable and keep you on track to your, your writing goals.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So that's the very first thing that you have to do with the right mindset set, set the foundation stride, allocate your time and get yourself accountable. The next thing that you need to do is if you have that idea, and I suppose with us course creators, we know the importance of market research. We need to validate our ideas. So for my students, there are some of them who just start writing. What I ask them is before you start writing, or even before you create your outline, you need to actually do the keyword research. You need to do the market research and identify the demand on Amazon. You need to understand what people are looking for, what are their problems? You know, how can you serve them with your book so that when you start writing your book, you are in the mindset of, look, there are people who need this knowledge right now, or there are people who need to hear my story right now, when you understand your market. And when you understand your reader's needs their goals, their fears, their frustrations, you will be able to write the book that will serve them well. And when you have a book that will serve your audience, well, that is easier to market. And that is easier to sell because this is something that they are looking for in the first place.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
So I thank you for that. We took a little bit of a tangent there, but I think it's important because I know a lot of my listeners will be, if, if they're not already going down the path of writing a book, that's something that they're interested in. So I appreciate you doing that. Let me ask you this in going back to the course, because this is this is an interview with course graders and you have a course called self-publishing may simple. Tell me a little bit about, when did you launch that course? How did you launch it? If you're willing to share 80 numbers? We'd love to know about that.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Of course. Well, my first launch was actually a better launch and when I did my better launch, I actually had zero content. I essentially reached out to aspiring authors who I knew, wanted to write a book. And I told them, look, I thinking about a course, it doesn't exist yet, but I can create it as we go along. You know, you tell me what you need. I, I have, I have an outline map out and I'm going to create the content week on week and I'll have it drip fed to you and people signed up, you know, I had 12 people to sign up for that. So essentially the topic was validated even before I even before I launched or even actually before I created the course, you know, people raise their hands, gave me their credit cards and, you know, even without any course, I'm ready at that point.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So I'm actually grateful for those for that initial beta pastors that they be trusted me because they've been following me on social media and they've seen the success I've had with my books. They knew that whatever it is that I will deliver, it actually works. So I started with that. I had that that better group. I told them I don't have anything yet, but I will develop it as we go along. And it started from there. And that was actually, I don't know that in 2019. So that was about two years ago. And there were several reincarnations of, of that of that course. It's still exists, you know, I still have the self-paced online course, but what I've noticed is that there are students who will sign up to that course and park it. You know, they, they, they will buy it and don't really do anything with it because they haven't really blocked that time to, to work on the course or work on the book.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So what I, what, how I modified that version of the course course was I turned it into a 12 week program where, where my students will sign up to the course, but I also offer weekly groups, coaching calls with them. So I can make sure that they are on track, that I could actually monitor their progress and essentially learn more about what they struggle with. And for me, I find this yeah, the, get it done, challenge. This is now my, my flagship course, you know, I absolutely love running it, although having the self-paced self-publishing made simple courses easier because it's something that my students can just buy and they can learn it on their own, the, get it done challenges, they have the information, but they can also have me and my other students, you know, we come together every Friday, we meet every week. I see how they're doing and I see their challenges. And that helps me to improve my course even more because I'm there I'm, hands-on, I can see what they're struggling with. And because the, because we, we meet every week for 12 weeks friends, and, you know, we build a community together when, you know, they launched together is just an absolutely fantastic experience for me and my students. And every single one gets to number one and we're, you know, we celebrate together and I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
So you have your self paced course, and then you have your 12 week group coaching program, which you have the course as part of that, but you also have the support. What is the price difference between those two?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
The price difference is actually quite minimal at the moment. The self-paced course is around 500 pounds. I'm going to have an increase by the 1st of March, actually. So I'm still testing the, I'm still testing the pricing at the moment, but the group coaching program is actually 1,497 pounds. So at the moment it's a 1000 pound difference. And the extra benefit they'll get is that they'll be part of a community and they get weekly group coaching calls with me. And I have to say, in terms of student experience, my students actually meet, I love the group coaching component of, of my, my program, because they say that writing can be a very isolating experience. And when you are part of a community and you do things together, you are all in the same boat, it makes it more enjoyable. And it sort of normalizes the, the problems and difficulties that they experienced. You know, they don't have to suffer in silence and, you know, I'm just there supporting them. And that it, for me, as a course creator and someone who facilitates this process, I do enjoy that. Part more, you know, the facilitating the group coaching calls because I immerse myself in the experience and when they launch, I feel as if I really made a contribution to their success and yeah, and I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
And, and I'm a big fan of bundling in group coaching with, you know, with online courses. So tell me a little bit about how do you find students for your programs, what marketing strategies do you employ and what, what is working best for you?
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Yeah, yeah. I've tried several things. Facebook ads didn't work for me. So let me start with what they didn't work. That Facebook ads didn't work for me. I'm actually going in Facebook groups and engaging in Facebook groups didn't really work for me well, but what's working for me. Well, right now is referrals. Most of my students are coming from previous students and my Facebook group, you know, I have a Facebook community. Self-Publishing needs simple community. I go live there every Tuesday. I have like asked me anything Tuesdays there. And that's where I establish my credibility. My, my members actually see that I know what I'm talking about. And they also realize that actually self publishing involves a lot of steps. And if you want to launch well, if you want to do well on Amazon, you need to have a strategy in place.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I do tell them what the steps are, but the how aspect of it is something that I teach inside my program. So for example, in my Facebook community, I do tell my community, look, when you launch, first of all, you need to have a launch strategy. You need to do your keyword research. You need to do your market research. You need to do your category research. You need to build your launch team that did that, did that, did that. So it gives my free community an idea of what's involved in it, but it also makes them understand that, Oh, okay. I think I need a little bit of support. I don't know how to do keyword research, or I don't know how to do category research, or I don't know how to build a launch team or where to find my editor or where to find the cover designer. That's all in my course. And that's how I ended up getting students for my programs. They reach out to me and that's been hugely successful for me.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Very good. Emee, what do you see as next steps for your business in 2021?
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Oh, right. Yes. Well, it's essentially expanding. I, I will continue to run the, get it done challenge. I only run it twice a year. I launch it in January and then again in June, I absolutely love it and I can foresee continuing doing that. But at the same time, the self-paced course is also an option for those who can afford the get-rich non challenge. And if they cannot do it within the 12 week program because of their schedule and other priorities, that's also an option for them. But for me, in terms of my business I can see that continuing to be important tasks, you know, sharing my, you know, sharing my story and my expertise with more people and possibly making collaborations and in affiliates because most of my one-to-one clients are actually you know, as I've mentioned in the referrals. And I think collaborating with my graduates, actually, my graduates are becoming my affiliates because they are growing their audience. They wrote their books. They are, they're amazing in terms of testifying that my program actually works. And, you know, working in collaboration with my graduates as affiliates will be the next step in my business.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
I'm a big fan of using affiliate. So you'll have to let me know how that goes for you. So what advice do you have for other online entrepreneurs online course creators out there as the closing question?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Oh, my advice, just keep going. Just keep going. I have to say that, you know, I've had moments where I thought, you know, this isn't, this isn't working who am I fooling? It's like, what am I doing? You will have those moments, but what they have to say is this is a work in progress. And if you see quote unquote failures as opportunities to learn those aren't really failures. You just have to look at it from the perspective of someone who can identify areas for growth and areas for development. And then you can try again and try again and try again until you find the perfect balance and what works for you. It might take several trials and errors and several heartaches and, and you know, better than saying, ah, nothing's working, but yeah, just keep persevering, you know, reach out for support. If you need to surround yourself with people who will help you to keep going. But yeah you know, to wrap it up, keep going, keep learning and, and you'll see that it will be all worth your time and your energy.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
And I like what you said there about looking for support, definitely look for other online entrepreneurs. Other people just like you, and they will be there to support you and you can support them. It may work. Can people find you?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yes. I think the easiest way to find me is on Facebook. So if you type in, self-publishing made simple community, I'm there in my community. I'm live every Tuesday at 6:00 PM UK time. So yeah, that's the easiest way to find me. So find me on Facebook. Self-Publishing made simple community
Speaker 1 (31:10):
And I will make sure that that link is in the show notes for everybody so they can go find you in your Facebook group. Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us today. If you have any questions course creators about the Course in a Box program, which is offered on AppSumo please reach out to me on LinkedIn or on Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Emee and would love for you to rate and review the podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.