Getting your book published is a dream come true for authors, but it can also be overwhelming because of the process. But with the Zi List, a one-stop platform designed to empower independent authors, it can make your dream come true! In this episode, Shiela Kennedy, the Editor and Publisher of Zebra Ink Magazine, explores the Zi List and how it dismantles the barriers faced by many authors. You will learn how to create a compelling author profile, leverage the power of press kits, and gain access to exclusive resources like marketing templates and industry expert interviews. The Zi List isn’t just about self-promotion; it’s about building a supportive community where authors can learn from each other and achieve their publishing dreams. Join Shiela Kennedy to guide your writing career to the next level.

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Watch the episode here

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The Zi List With Sheila Kennedy

Sheila Kennedy is here to share some new programs that she’s put together for self-published authors, and they’re reasonably priced. Stay tuned. Before we get started, in September 2024, we have the AI Author Academy coming up teaching you how to streamline all of your content using AI. We literally have cut hours out of our monthly content production using the methodology that I teach in this. I’ll introduce you to some new platforms that make publishing and getting some of that metadata super easy within minutes. You can register for that over at AIAuthorAcademy.com. We are going to be presenting four group programs, and then we break off each week. You get four one-on-ones with it. I know it’s hard sometimes when you sit through a class, a group class and you’ve got all this theory.

The one-on-ones are to take that theory and apply it directly to whatever it is that is your content production, whatever you’re doing with your book. If you’re not quite sure whether the class is for you or not, go jump on my calendar, ChatWithJuliet.com, and we can walk you through it and see if you’re ready or not.

Our guest is Sheila Kennedy. She’s the editor and publisher of Zebra Ink Magazine and has spent over one decade immersed in the world of publishing. As a two-time solo author and co-author of a bestselling memoir of Justice Joseph Valentino, he’s retired, and publisher of twenty-plus other authored books, Sheila has not only mastered the technicalities, there are a lot of them, of the industry, but also championed the emotional depth that storytelling demands. She understands that passion, vulnerability, resilience, and creativity form the emotional currency that fuels an author’s journey from conception to publication.

Through her mentorship and coaching, Sheila has guided countless aspiring authors, helping them to draw upon this emotional wealth, to craft stories that resonate deeply with readers. She created the Zi List, a bookstore, an independent directory for authors and published service providers and independent bookstores which showcase the bravery, brilliance, and boldness of the indie author community. I’m excited about this program because I think it’s one of those where you get a little bit of advice on the intricacies of the industry, and quite frankly, that’s always the thing that shocks people. When we jump into it, it’s like, “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know this.” Stay tuned for the talk with Sheila and me.

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Sheila, welcome. I’m excited to talk about your new programs.

Thank you, Juliet. It’s great to be here. I’m excited to be back again.

What propelled you to start the Zi List? What were you seeing out there that made you think, “I’ve got to be the information person for this?” Before I have you answer that, I want to point out to you guys that people get into these projects and they have no idea what it takes. They’re always stunned by, “What do you mean the publisher needs out? I have to do what?” There are a lot of little things that no one ever tells them or adequately explains. Tell us about the Zi List.

The Motivation Behind The Zi List

The motivation behind the Zi list, I was a small label publisher for eight years and decided that I wanted to close the label, but authors are in my heart and I want to be able to champion them and help them grow and build their platforms. That was always a goal of mine. Knowing that I wasn’t going to be publishing anymore, I thought, “What else can I do?” I thought about all the things that I had encountered over those eight years about authors and what they needed to be able to grow and be able to sell more books and get booked on podcasts, interviews, and things like that. One by one, I started to put all of that together. We started with the Zebra Ink Magazine because I do know that being published is a beautiful way to expand your audience for very little income or little output as far as “You’ve got to write an article.”

That’s not a big deal for most writers but it expands their audience immensely. I’ve been happy. That was the very first step in providing a platform builder for authors so that they can come and share their stories. We publicize their books and things like that. That’s been a great part of what has now become the Zi list. The Zi list is a directory and everybody gets a profile listing and in their profile, they can list their specialties. What do they write about their genres there? What do they do if they have a day job? Those kinds of things. There are over 300 categories I think. If somebody doesn’t have a category because I missed it and didn’t think of it, they just need to tell me and I can add it.

It has all their contact information, socials, a website for them, and a bio section. They can put in a resume. They can sell their books and they can also get reviews on their books, which is a great thing because Amazon is not always user-friendly for people who are trying to leave reviews. We do have that option as well. They can sell their books from the site. that’s an amazing tool. I added where they can put interview questions, they can put their media appearances, publications and they can also put their fun facts. Those are all things that you typically would put on a separate press kit because I think every author needs one and they have their own link. They have their own URL and QR code.

This is a way for them to be able to share a lot of self-published authors especially do not have a website. They don’t want to go to the expense, “This is exactly like a website for them.” They can publish blogs and community articles, they can put videos and they can put photo albums. If they have a book signing and they want to put those up there. We have an ask-and-receive board. If somebody needs to get an introduction to somebody or wants an opinion on their book covers, things like that. That’s part of the directory listing. There are memberships involved in the directory listings the higher level membership. It includes a resource library. I share all of the resources that I have shared with authors for the last many years.

Templates, guides, discovery, and crazy things like, “What state abbreviations to use in a press release?” All those kinds of things that they may not have elsewhere. We also have two community calls a month in that membership level. We wanted to have self-publishing questions. If you are self-publishing, if you don’t have any publishing experience and you don’t know who to ask, and there are a lot of people that gatekeep, which I understand, but come and ask the questions and I’ll answer as best I can if I don’t know the answer, I’ll find somebody that does. We also have a marketing and platform-building call. We have marketing challenges because we want to keep their marketing top of mind every month, things like that we talk about different ways that we can market books and themselves and grow their platform and all those kinds of things.

I’ll have guest speakers coming in. I have somebody coming in in the next month or so. We haven’t finalized that date, but she coaches people to give TED Talks. She’s going to come in and share her knowledge with us. It’s not just me because there are a lot of people who know probably a lot more than I do. I want to utilize the community that we have there’s advertising that comes with all of that as well. I wanted to be able to give the authors an opportunity to have all the resources they need to grow. I think we’ve accomplished that. We’ll have a podcast coming. We started interviewing the other day. It’s lots of fun. I love the community far because it’s not just authors.

We also have in the community two different sections. One is for publishing providers. That can be small-label publishers, editors, formatters, social media managers, illustrators, the whole bit. We even have some coaches in there who want to support authors, specifically copywriters, graphic designers, the whole bit, and book cover designers because I wanted the authors to have a resource of where to find these people. no gatekeeping, let’s have introductions. There’s also going to be a section. We’re about to start launching that for independent bookstores because there are a lot of indie bookstores that we’ll buy from indie authors, but they don’t know where to find them. This is an opportunity for them to look at the list and see if there’s anybody that they want to buy from. The list of authors can show who is buying from indie authors and could pitch their book to them. There is a lot of exciting stuff going on.

That last part with the indie bookstores, I can’t even express. There are probably 100,000 books that are released every single month. We pretty much insist that all of our authors purchase the buyer’s catalog because it hones it down to 300 or 400. Think about that for a minute. If you have a list, you can approach these bookstores yourself to get your books in because the catalog could get you noticed by the buyers. But there are many books out there now that I’m sure being a buyer is a tough thing. Here’s another thing that I love and I think I told you this story earlier in the week. If you are going to self-publish, you can learn how to do this without making tragic mistakes.

I’m going to share a tragic mistake. We had an author earlier this year come to me to be on a tour and she showed me the format of her books and she had published her own books on Amazon. Unfortunately, she published a fiction novel with a case laminate cover because Amazon doesn’t offer jacketed case laminate. When I looked at it, I was like, “You can’t send that to the tour people because they know about books.” We had to redo her book in case laminate so that she didn’t look like the amateur that she was.

Having something like this as a resource would be amazing because that is a mistake that can cost quite a bit of money to have to redo covers. She didn’t even realize and she’s like, “Now I need two covers because it’s jacketed and laminate.” Something like this for authors can be helpful and it’s a reasonable price. Let’s talk about the platform building too, because many authors don’t do the platform building, which means they don’t have access to an agent, which means they either have to pay for it or they have to do Amazon. It sounds like you’re creating content and a press kit for people.

The Press Kit

It’s not done for you. I do not do anything for the authors as far as providing services that way anymore. We used to do things like that, but I teach them how to do it. That’s important. How to engage in social media and how to engage in traditional media using things like a press kit. When I first published my very first book many years ago, somebody said to me, “You need to have a press kit.” I was like, “I am not going to be exciting enough. I would never need that.” I was super humble.

I used to have this whole campaign about the invisible author, “I want to be famous, but I don’t want anybody to see me.”

She insisted that and she sat down with me and God loved her. We put that together and I cannot tell you, it isn’t just authors. Every entrepreneur needs to have one. If you are ever trying to “sell” something to the public, you need to have a press kit I use it all the time. It’s great for obviously pitching press. I’m going to stand by the fact that it is easier to pitch press than It is to move the needle on social media these days because social media is saturated and it people are so tired. You have to shout loudly.

The Zi List: If you try to sell something to the public, you should have a press kit.

Most of the time, no matter how wonderful your efforts are, unless you’re paying for advertising, which God bless the platforms because they’ve finally figured out that people were using them for years and years without paying for it, they’re now starting to cash in on that. If you have something to say, unless you’re posting and boosting, it doesn’t get seen. We can use the press kit for all of that pitching. That’s a beautiful thing. However, the press kit is also super valuable when you are trying to pitch meeting planners, event planners, podcasters, and those kinds of things. That’s why I added the section about media and publications, because most media, podcasters, etc., do not want to interview somebody who they don’t think can handle an interview.

They don’t want dead space. They want to make sure that they’re going to be able to talk. They’re not going to be, “Um.” Having a recorded interview on your press kit shows whoever you’re showing it to, that you can handle an interview and that you have something valuable to share. That’s a wonderful way to be able to use it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people that are like, Sheila is sending over media kit because you’re speaking for that group, you are doing a workshop or you’re doing whatever the case may be. It’s got everything they need to know all about me. It’s got a bio, photograph, headshot, and contact information. It’s got all of the things about the book and questions for an interview. I’ve added interview questions to the profiles so that they can literally share their profile with whoever they’re trying to pitch and get to use it like that.

That is important for me as a podcaster. If I don’t know you already and know that you can speak, I want to see a video because I’ve had people try to get on the podcast. I had this one thing many years ago where somebody recommended this YouTube guy. He was the age of my son. He was 25. I felt I should have pre-interviewed him. Do you have kids?

I do. I have a daughter who’s 25.

I have a boy and a girl, and girls will chat all day long. They come home from school and you know they’re back there telling you all about their day. Boys, it’s like pulling teeth. That’s what the interview was like. I felt like I was interviewing my son after school. How do you do that? That’s why it’s important for you guys to look at these things and see what other people have in them and have that interview or two or all of them sometimes in that press kit so people can see that you can speak, you’re not scared, you’re credible and that you’ll make a good impression because remember that you are representing them too when you’re on my show. I love all of this. When you do these calls monthly, what night of the, are they at the same time or how do you run your events?

Our self-publishing question-and-answer call is on Tuesday of every month. It’s 7:00 Eastern Standard Time. The marketing platform call is on the last Thursday of every month. It’s 7:00. What I love about that is people come as they want to, but the community has been beautiful so far. I’ve enjoyed building a community and I’m excited to see it grow because authoring and writing can be pretty isolating and lonely. You can exist in a vacuum most of the time.

The Zi List: Authoring and writing can be pretty isolating and lonely. You can exist in a vacuum but find a community of people who support and share resources with each other.

To be able to have a community of people who support each other, and are willing to share resources with each other, somebody always knows somebody. There are always introductions that are happening. I’m seeing a lot of cross, I’ll say pollination for lack of a better word, but I’m seeing them doing things together on their own aside from the group so that they’re interviewing each other on their, each other’s podcasts or they are writing on their blog. they’re guest blogging for them or things like that.

I love the fact that there’s a community of people who are all trying to do the same thing and they’re not feeling like they’re competing against each other because there’s room for all of us at the table. I love the fact that we’re building something that is truly community-like. It’s a give-and-take. I love that part.

Is this fiction or nonfiction or both?

Both.

I know I got a fiction book from you, which I hope he’s out there selling because it’s an AI book. That was scary.

Chase Cunningham.

When did we get that, 2020?

It was a while ago.

It was fiction-nonfiction because he’s big on women in tech because he feels like women, especially in security state stuff, they have better intuition than men, but you guys should go read it. It’s called gAbrIel and it is scary because it’s AI drones taking down a plane. I asked him like, “Is this real?” Did he send you the Lockheed Martin video?

He didn’t.

The Zi List

When I asked him like, “Is this real? Are you making this up?” He sent me a Lockheed Martin training video that showed these drones going in and killing a whole classroom in Russia. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” You don’t realize how advanced we are. That’s good. It’s both fiction and nonfiction. Where do we find it? Where do we sign up? Give us a little pricing. I bragged a little bit in the intro that this was all very reasonable.

It is very reasonable and I did that because authors generally don’t want to spend a lot of money on their platform building and this gives them a whole lot of resources for their money. The intro level for indie authors is $21. For $21 it’s a yearly membership, they get their listing and all of the things that they get to put on there and they get two mentions or advertisements in the magazine that go out sometime in that calendar year. They get two advertisements. The membership level is Indie Publishing Roadmap. That is all of the calls, resource library, and the podcast interview. It’s four different opportunities to be shouted out. I shared that the directories are what I’m doing and everybody’s best interest to beef that up as much as possible. I share those four times a year. That’s only $99.

It’s very reasonable.

If you are a publishing provider, you provide some service to authors and you think that they would be able to connect with them on the directory, that listing is $98 for the year and you are not necessarily a part of the community as far as being involved in the calls. However, you get some good advertising. There’s a banner ad on the website for a month. There’s also an add-on in the magazine. I had somebody send me a photo of a newspaper article that their mother had clipped out of the newspaper that I had written and it had my photo in my byline in the article that I wrote many years ago. I’ve got that on my mind.

That’s what I’m saying. When you think about the fact that I wrote that article many years ago, I had a newspaper column for four years. I wrote it for free. I didn’t get paid to do it, but I was happy to do it. I got my picture, my byline, my website, and my content. This was way before we got into content creation. This was 2007 and 2008. I looked up how much an ad of equivalent space size would be and it would’ve been $1,500 every time I put an ad that big in. I got that for free. How many years later people are still able to see what I wrote back then?

You never know what you say and publish in these periodicals, the magazines and newspapers, the guest blogs, how far and wide it’s going to keep getting circulated. Anyway, little aside there, the publishing providers, I am going to also have events where we’ll have panel discussions and have different people that are involved in the different aspects of publishing to be able to field questions and get to know the authors and that thing because let’s put you all together.

I’m on one of those on July 9th. You hear a lot from other publishers like, “You’ve done what?” I talk to other publishers a lot. Where do we find all of this? If we wanted to go and sign up, where would we go?

It’s at TheZebraInk.com. There’s a Join Today page and tons of business resources. You can check out the blogs. Some of the members have already started publishing their blogs. You can find my articles from Breakthrough Author Magazine. We’ve got all kinds of fun things. If there’s something that you think you need that you don’t see, you need to let me know and I’ll see if it’s feasible enough for me to make it happen.

On October 2, 2024, you will be doing training for us as well on profiles and press kits. Every single one of you better be there, or at least look out for the email so you can register. Sheila, thank you. I’m excited about this. I think there are a lot of people out there who need this, who don’t understand the industry, but they’re jumping in feet first.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Important Links

• AI Author Academy
• Chat With Juliet
• Zebra Ink Magazine
• gAbrIel
• Join Today – Zebra Ink
• Blogs – Zebra Ink