Between My Sheets—Episode 6: The Third Shock
One gate. A curious goat. The Frenchman.
What if rebuilding a writing life isn’t this neat, curated thing you map out on a whiteboard . . . but the moment you finally admit what’s been quietly running the show underneath?
New here? You may wish to start at the beginning.
Because it turns out I’m writing a book disguised as a literary business model, disguised as a memoir unfolding in real time.
This episode is a 11 minute read.
Welcome, you.
Two things happened this week that shocked the hell out of me.
As I write this, I’m thinking it’s about time for that third shock to land. I’m not superstitious, simply bound to the number three.
Like the three baby frogs I saved this morning while writing before first light.
Back to those shocks to my system.
First, in cleaning up my digital messes and creating simple systems—I noticed something.
My one-and-done offers are crazy lucrative.
Deleting duplicate sales pages and grabbing checkout links, I noticed something interesting.
The numbers.
In a few clicks I found the “All time” sales data on a product and nearly spit out my coffee.
One audio—a 16 minute meditation I created on my laptop, in this house, in one day, just a few years ago—has made more than $27,000.
That number shocked me—and here’s why.
While it’s not much to live on over the course of two or three years—heck, not even sure that covers hay for the goats for that long!
Yeah, they can eat and hay here is crazy expensive . . . but I love my goats.
But it’s also not my only one-and-done offer.
Like a book, it’s written once—and then it’s done.
Meaning, it’s my one focus, my one delight, my one world until it’s done. And when it’s done-done—that’s it. It sells and sells.
But it only sells with the right forever-running structure in the background.
Thank you, Becks.
Although she rarely hums—as she’s more the F-bomb dropping type—but giving credit where credit is due, she’s the very structure that sells my books.
So my book writing works. I write till done. She takes over and sells my words.
While that’s happening, I one-and-done another book.
But flip to a word-based business, there are a lot of moving parts that most “teachers” or “gurus”—Gosh, please don’t even call me the last—never fully reveal.
The how.
The how of building a container that will sell and sell and sell.
Because, let’s face it, unless you are selling and money is rolling in, you’re not running a business but playing in what can become an expensive hobby.
So while I have always believed the how is none of my business—that things will flow, work out, and come together . . . in this case, just no.
The how is my current work.
How did I make $27K+ from a 16-minute audio meditation that people love after pressing play?
I spend maybe four hours creating the audio.
Wrote the script.
Recorded my voice.
Bought music.
Edited the music with my voice file.
Played with the volume and fade and reverb for too long.
Wrote a sales page
Put the sales page up on Samcart
Wrote a welcome email
Scheduled the welcome email and link to audio file inside email autoresponder—(a must for a word-centered business)
Created tags to connect the sales page, checkout, autoresponder so upon purchase that email triggers and automatically sends
Wrote a follow up email
Wrote a feedback ask email
Scheduled those in Kit
Created a mini sales page as an “order bump” to add to another product checkout page—The Magnetic Storytelling Method: Not a Writing Manual—a Way Back to Your Voice
Tested both sales/checkout pages in Samcart
Put a few links to the audio inside the ebook so readers could say yes later if they missed the “order bump”
Wrote a few emails and send them over time to my subscribers
And I’m sure there are ten other things I did—that at this moment evade me—but this gives you the gist . . . and me the realization of why half the time I don’t finish my one-and-done creations unless it’s a book.
I mean look at this linear list—the mix of hats to wear—from creative to technical and back again.
And I can do both jobs—but rarely well, it seems, for the simple reason that I miss something.
Or I have a new brilliant idea.
Just this week I have created a new front door—a way for people to come into my word-world and hopefully feel welcomed, seen, and heard.
The new gateway involved taking that same book, cleaning up broken links, refreshing the offers, changing the subtitle, new cover.
Sigh.
But of course that’s not all.
I decided to make it an experience—so that meant recording the audio and building an eleven-day email journey to mirror the tasks inside it.
And all the tech that goes along with this shift.
It’s not hard, nor all that complicated.
It’s simply a lot of moving pieces to complete—and not walk away from mid-build.
A book, though? That’s me writing until the last page.
Then it’s mine again for edits—after Becks has taken it, read it, had a pass with an editor I trust, and hands it back to me.
With a dreaded deadline.
And because I don’t love deadlines, I get it done so it stops looming over me like a metaphoric ax.
Becks handles edits, cover, contracts, timeline—until my author copy lands in my mailbox.
And once that book is on the shelf, I’m pretty much out.
I’m already writing something new. Probably have been for a while.
Because until this point, I have chosen to be behind the scenes.
No interviews, podcasts, media at all. No bookstore readings, signings or fan meet and greets.
Which are all lovely . . .
However, they also detract from the most important job a writer has.
To write.
Because the more you build a library of words, the more likely you are to be successful as a writer.
One book is great, but three is better.
Meaning, someone likes a book—what do they do?
They immediately search for other books by the same author. And if they really liked that first read, they buy all the others.
One by one or in an impulsive “add all to cart” moment.
So books actually start to become their own marketing machine.
Which is what I created haphazardly a few years back with that very profitable $27K+ audio.
A create-it-once—deliciously good thing—and allow people to find it again and again and again by dropping it inside of books, front door offers, and even linking it here at the bottom of this episode.
Take my desire for structured ease . . .
My inability to find that story I know I wrote about the time I made my 6th grade teacher wait while I finished the very last line of the very last page and then calmly, proudly handed her all 100 pages of the story she’d asked us to write.
Or my lack of linear thinking needed to complete all the bloody steps so a one-and-done offer can be released without a tech break.
Or my need for a system to have all my details, links, thoughts—but please God, not another spreadsheet.
Sigh.
So that’s a huge win this week—I stopped looking for the right system and created my own.
A book.
A Google Doc with tabs as the product.
Meaning every single tab is its one chapter, entity, product. And together they make up my word-web of a business.
I finally created something from a place I get, feel comfortable in, understand.
Took me a while to turn off all the bro marketing noise in my head, but now it’s done.
And my shoulders are finally relaxing.
It’s such a delight to pull up this ONE document I’ve dubbed—Jill’s Word-Business Web 2026—and see all my products coming into organized existence.
Plus, I can now actually find what I need when I need it.
That’s as delicious a feeling as sinking into a bubble bath under the stars—which will happen this weekend in my newly installed bathtub if the plumber finishes the job.
Fingers crossed.
I could really use a “Calgon take me away” moment.
But that coming-together tabbed doc of mine is tiding me over until I can sink into those silky waters.
Now let’s get back to that second shock of mine before the third one lands and I forget about it.
. . .
A new friend who recently moved to this remote island with his partner found me online.
Well, since I sent him a link to my website so he could check out my yet-to-be-publicized idea of—“sponsor a goat”—it wasn’t hard.
I mean, the URL makes it pretty easy—and me saying yes to his follow-up ask of—“Are you the joyful writer?”—made him my instant stalker.
Let’s call him Lippy because he has a mouth on him and is funny as can be.
But what was really interesting was my reaction to him saying—”I’m going to subscribe!”
Instantly, without thought, my response—”I’ll just delete you.”
Gasp.
What?!
Why?!
His response was priceless. “You’d do that?”
Without hesitation, “Yep.”
Oh.My.Word.
What is my issue with sharing, being out there, not letting people who know me read my words.
This really got me thinking as I fixed a gate on the farmette. A gate that Buddha Kiss Me Sigh loves to headbutt for hours.
One that was going to give way at any moment.
A gate I’ve been barricading shut with a crossbar 2x4 for weeks now which requires me to walk around in my jean overalls carrying a drill whenever I want to visit—or feed—the flock.
So with Gracey Girl, a very curious goat, by my side, I managed to fix the nearly pulled-away hinge, rework the locks—yes, multiples—and do some nearly meditative thinking.
When I wasn’t removing blue screws from Gracey Girl’s mouth.
I started to reflect on the contradiction that is me.
I remembered working with Autumn, my self-publishing editor, on the first title I published in my name—and telling her no personal stories.
Only to turn around and write deeply personal essays—share vulnerable moments that moved her and others to tears.
And tell her the book needs more stories.
My writing tends to be deeply personal and yet I’m terribly private. So much so that I once wondered if I was possibly experiencing Vanishing Twin Syndrome.
The phenomenon that happens in the womb where one twin dies and the other absorbs cells, DNA, and even presence.
That would explain my two-headed, walking/talking/hiding yet sharing deeply personas.
But while that might make a fascinating book, chances are there’s not a medical reason for why I said what I said.
And meant it.
That instinctive reaction to banish someone wanting to subscribe to me—my words.
. . .
But seriously, what does it reveal about how I’ve operated for thirty years—behind curtains, under pseudonyms, keeping your word-world private even from my husband?
It says I’ve known myself so well that I designed my life to fit how I best operate.
Instead of making it wrong or bad . . . it was how I chose to be in the world.
And yet now, why am I choosing visibility?
It’s obvious I’m not comfortable with it.
Yet.
But I’m doing it. I’m here, writing this, every Friday, and not deleting when you—when anyone—subscribes.
Maybe because I know so many people—especially now—might need a quiet creator in their corner.
Someone who knows her why—
I write because I must.
I write because I am a writer, a storyteller.
It’s simply part of my DNA.
Someone who knows she doesn’t have to step into the spotlight to be successful—
And yet I’m choosing to be more visible in the hopes that I can help those creatives who need to be witnessed, supported, encouraged.
The $27K meditation worked because I built a solid gate into my world.
One that didn’t break. And when I shared that entry point, people said YES to my audio and more.
With delight, with ease, automatically—like sales for my books simply come in because of the structure and systems Becks has in place.
I actually succeeded in creating that for myself—and didn’t even realize it until I saw that number—$27K.
And there it is. My third shock.
I have done this well.
I can do this.
I created something, followed my linear checklist—connected every T and I—and the notifications came in.
“You’ve made a sale!” Day and night.
I had a small humming system working.
And that’s worth celebrating, acknowledging, and sharing.
That audio has now helped more than 1,000 people!
Holy cow.
That makes me stop and put my hand to my heart, deep breath in, deep breath out, and realize just how worth it—sharing, being visible—actually is.
And to realize, after a 60-second dance party around my kitchen counter, that the reason it didn’t do better, didn’t help 3,000 or 9,000 or even 11,000 people over the last three years is because I didn’t share enough.
One-and-done only works if you leave the gate open.
The gate wasn’t broken. I just stopped tending it.
I’m actually not building something new.
That’s what that $27K+ shocker showed me.
I’m returning to something I’ve known how to do, can do, and have done well.
I did it once. It worked.
I just need the system that keeps me from forgetting it exists.
And this series, Between My Sheets, is unexpectedly part of that system.
With an episode written in real time on Thursday and Friday mornings—for a Friday noon EST deadline—it’s forcing me to reflect weekly on
what I need to do,
want to do,
have done,
and whether or not anything I chose worked.
That reflection is real-time, powerful, and surprise-surprise, keeping me on track.
These episodes are becoming the word-glue holding this chapter together.
And when the Frenchman comes next weekend, after months apart, it will be up to me to not get distracted by his sweet presence—not to miss this most powerful accountability setup I’ve accidentally, unknowingly created.
Because the only thing that ever stopped the gate from working was me.
Me getting sidetracked.
Me forgetting what I built.
But not this time.
Just Jill “finally leaving the word-gate open” Stevens
In this episode, I mention my first title written in my name, with its many personal shares, and the audio behind that shocking-to-me profit.
The Book: Create Your Most Delicious Life
The Audio: Constant Creative Flow
If you’d like to follow this unfolding story, you can subscribe below.
Just so you know: This is my slice of the web where hot flashes meet cold wine, neck waddles are real, and birthdays feel more like breakdowns. Step into my word-world as I (re)build my writing life in real time.