Between My Sheets—Episode 7: The Gold
One bathtub. A 57% yes. Sunday is coming.
What if (re)building a writing life isn’t the neat, curated thing you map out on a whiteboard . . . but the moment you stop stepping over the broken thing and simply—fix it?
New here? You may want 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.
Sink into this Friday moment—roughly a 9-minute read.
Welcome, you.
I am a prolific creator. Not just writer. Creator. And a quiet one at that.
This week it hit me hard that I am a prolific, quiet creator. Not just a writer.
Yes a prolific writer—one who writes 2,500 words before the sun graces the sky, words that are mostly for me . . .
But I also create offers that never see the light of day.
Some half done.
Some ready to ship.
All sharing a common trait—digital dust.
Because I am a prolific creator who starts more than she finishes.
And lack the skill of follow through (at times).
And what I know, have always known, is that the fortune is in the follow through.
I get excited by an idea but instead of seeing it all the way to done, automated, working completely, I’ve had 7 other ideas.
And decided 3 are definitely yes-now things that need my focus too.
What’s interesting is I started the week thinking this was wrong, horrible, a problem and now, ending the week, I see it as a flipping superpower—under the right conditions.
Just like I always have multiple drafts going—usually three books at once and I work on the one that calls out to me—a book is contained.
It’s words on a page until it’s done.
A product, an offer, a—well, if you read Episode 6: —you saw that overwhelming list. A product is so not contained.
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So this week I’ve done an audit of my Front Door offer which led me down a lovely rabbit hole of realizing—
Holy shit, I have a gold mine that no one has access to.
So many wonderful words not shared, ebooks, PDFs, classes, thoughts . . .
Some half done, many completely done on the “creation” side but never shared.
Sigh.
But even as I sigh, I end this week feeling the shift in me. Because it’s not that I don’t want to share any more, it’s just I was missing the structured ease, the systematic approach to getting all these amazing creations in front of people.
A book has a natural, repeatable distribution path to place it in a reader’s hopefully word-hungry hands.
And for me, Becks handles that side of things with ease—and gets a nice chunk of any and all paydays for taking it off my plate.
But this word-business, even selling a PDF “book” online, it requires so much more than just creation, editing, cover, compiling—done.
That’s what’s been missing—a rinse and repeat path to getting all this gold inside my digital value out into happy, interested hands.
It hit me too, that part of my lack was listening to those (mostly bro) voices still in my head, saying things like “launch fast.”
Yeah, no. That doesn’t work for me.
Launch fast has meant sharing my word-creations, offers, products without a complete system in place.
It creates issues, chaos and the need to fix things because I “launch too fast” with half tech-done things.
And when something breaks or an email doesn’t go out and someone is waiting for it, the retracing of tech steps to figure it out is what makes me question everything.
Why don’t you just write books, Jill? It’s so much easier.
But the answer, I feel called to help people access their voice, their words.
I remember sharing with a mentor—who also happened to be male—that I felt called to help 33,000 people.
He laughed at me.
Told me not to share that in my sales copy or anywhere.
A bit crushed, I remember also feeling grateful his laughter interrupted me before I completed the full sentence . . .
I feel called to help 33,000 people, then 333,000 and—maybe, somehow, some way—my words, my work will touch 33 million people.
That moment was more than a decade ago, nearly two, and yet I remember it like it was yesterday.
And I know the power of a story, of words.
Heck, my words are in millions of copies of books across genres—impacting the lives of people I will never know I touched.
So now, to reach people, to impact and move them, as me, in the sunlight, that’s worth the discomfort of sharing.
That’s worth getting out of my own chaotic way.
That’s worth finally finding my structured ease system.
Not high ticket sales.
Not sales calls.
Not hustle.
Not bro marketing.
Not daily emails.
Instead a web of opportunities at a variety of price points that allow me to impact those first 33,000 people.
So this is me reclaiming my once energizing statement and no longer willing to allow the influence of another to derail me.
This is me working how I work best.
Sometimes live.
Sometimes evergreen.
Always creating from a place of JOY and ease.
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Now, when I originally ran The JOYful Journey live as a 33 day writing challenge—meaning each morning I woke up and wrote that days email and lesson and sometimes story-share example—it worked.
It wasn’t meant to be done and automated—that came after.
And of course with snags because of my lack of follow through . . .
So this week, I slowed down.
I removed those voices from my head and I focused on finishing one thing to completion and documenting it all.
Not easy for me, but a skill I’m happily learning.
Slowing the creation down to document the steps, so every little thing gets done, was not easy because all these ideas fired—just like they always do.
So I wrote them down on an idea list that I kept open and stayed focused.
Because little things that break have—in the past—derailed half a day or more and sucked the JOY right out of this word-business.
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To give you a taste, this week was about
Editing a book The Magnetic Storytelling Method, not to add more content but to make sure links inside weren’t broken. A few were.
Also, to clarify references—some had to go as they no longer made sense.
To add the actual next path steps someone can take after reading the book.
I can go on and on, but that led to the redesign of the cover—needed no but yes as it matches who I am now.
With that done, there is the need to review emails that go with the book, test delivery links and figure out the path someone takes from that book.
I could be making this more complex than it is—but slowing down showed me all the gaps—and led to some great ideas.
The addition of an audio recording of the book which I’m currently doing chapter by chapter, task by task, as a private podcast.
So instead of a three hour audio, this is a searchable, return-to reference—a podcast the listener can access on the go, at any time.
And it’s so fun—even though it’s learning new tech and adding a system to my business.
But it’s a system I believe I will use again and again with all my books.
From there, the idea for a mini email experience offer surfaced that mirrored the tasks in the book.
So often reading is all we do, but the real work is in the doing—in this case, the writing.
And even though this wasn’t about creating, but clearing up and organizing—this idea was too perfect to pass up.
So I chose to go for it—from start to finish.
Eleven emails written, and no, AI did not write them, plus a welcome email—all in one afternoon.
Not only that, the next morning in 45 minutes I wrote a sales page and an email offering this experience to a segment of people who have purchased the book—The Magnetic Storytelling Method—in the past.
By the end of the day 21 people clicked the link, signed up for The 11 Day Magnetic Momentum Experience—were immediately gifted the updated book and received the first day’s writing task email the next day.
Wow, writing this makes me realize I created a ton this week AND actually “launched fast” but with guardrails of documented-till-done systems and absolutely no bro energy.
Just a simple offer-ask—quietly done and not to everyone.
Those 21 people currently going through at a steal-of-a-deal pricing makes the extra, unplanned work so worth it. Because now, the feedback is coming in on day four of this eleven day experience.
Some have shared how empowered they feel, how motivated to write, and I get to witness them in action.
Which led to another idea to actually Witness their writing of this 11 day experience.
Yes, another idea.
I warned you at the start of this episode that I am a prolific creator and well, I wasn’t kidding, now was I?
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Imagine for less than the cost of a dinner (on this island, for one) but perhaps in other locations for two—you could share your daily words and know I’m there receiving them, reading them, witnessing your writing.
And sometimes even responding.
I gave myself 90 minutes to write an email offering this idea to those in The 11 Day Experience and set up the backend details.
Twelve people of the 21 said yes to having me as their writing witnessed.
That’s 57% saying yes to that idea—Your Writing Witness—one that only ended up taking me 28 minutes to put together, document and release from start to finish.
I could go on and share about the creation of two other products this week— as I was cleaning up my offers, completing things systematically, and having fun in the process—but I’ll just allow you to see for yourself when my “front door” opens.
It’s actually exciting and calming to now have the ability to wildly create but in a structured manner simply because I’m documenting it as I go.
And the numbers, they don’t lie. To get a 57% yes to one email is next crazy good when most bro numbers say 10%, 20% and if you’re lucky and super good 30% take rate on an offer or upsell.
No more learning what others are doing and how they do it.
I have proof—time and time again—that I rock this when I do it my way.
When I lean into structured ease.
When I rein in the dramatic chaos.
When I complete things.
Which is making me imagine how much impact all my digital gold will have once, dusted off and released with JOY into the world.
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And makes me wonder, would people be interested in a deeper dive of Between My Sheets—like The Balance Sheet.
A place for real numbers behind what this week—or this month—built.
A different room.
A deeper experience.
Utter transparency—the numbers, the expenses, the profits, the losses—when it comes to running a word-business.
One I’m opening here as a paid extension of Between My Sheets.
Yes, another idea, another product, another offer.
How exciting.
I need to let it marinate, allow it to form, and if it’s a sacral yes for me—give it a 90 minute window to create and document.
But first, I’m off to finish that front door entrance into my word-world and, fingers crossed, have it live and kicking for people to find come Sunday.
For now, I have two treats to look forward to as rewards for a week well spent.
A working bathtub Saturday night and the arrival of the Frenchman Sunday, last flight.
Before the Frenchman arrives, it looks like I will be able to sink into a long awaited bubble bath as my Saturday treat and reward for the week.
I can already feel the caress of that silky, almost hot, water.
And in preparation, yesterday when a carpenter came to talk about the needed gates, we first chatted about how to create a privacy nook for the bathtub area which is outdoors in a rather unique location on my front porch.
I know, weird.
But it’s where the hot and cold water are and when they redid my bathroom, somehow the tub was forgotten about and a bench went in instead.
Sigh.
But gosh-damn it, I want to take a bath so I’m okay being the crazy goat lady, who also has half dozen cats, a traveling Frenchman AND a bathtub on her front porch hidden by planters and vines—
and hmmm, sounds kind of divine!
And The Frenchman . . .
While I’m excited about his return, I’m staying focused for now.
Episode 8 will tell you how that all went.
Just Jill “oh la la, The Frenchman’s on his way” Stevens
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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.