This Yoga Instructor Turned Her Writing Skills Into A $72K/Month Business
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
My name’s Laura Mikkelsen, and I’m the founder of Publishing Services. I started the company, originally called Best Selling Book Descriptions, in March 2019 – and it did exactly as it said on the tin. My goal was to create best-selling Amazon book descriptions that self-published authors could use to sell their work. Since then, the company has grown enormously, and we now offer a full range of services for publishers – everything from author biographies to email marketing – but our original and most successful products remain solidly on the menu: book descriptions and book outlines. Our average monthly revenue is $72,000, and we are currently training a wave of new writers to meet soaring demands.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I began my journey in the publishing industry as a self-publisher, but it didn’t take me long to realize that selling my books wasn’t my passion. What I loved was writing – and specifically, copywriting. Listening to discussions in the community, I realized that not many independent publishers have the copywriting skills or training to market their books successfully… and that sparked the idea for the business.
Back then, it was just me, and I wrote book descriptions around my regular life. I was living in the middle of the rice fields in Bali with three Indonesian guys and three dogs, and I was teaching yoga for up to 30 hours a week. I was lucky enough that my monthly costs were low – my rent was $120 a month and I didn’t spend more than $7 a day on food. I was only spending $500 a month – and that included the fun stuff (perhaps largely because my passion is surfing, and that’s free!) I would describe myself as a bit of a technophobe back then. I knew very little about internet business… I could open up Safari, and that was about the extent of my powers!
I may not have had any experience in business, but there was one thing that I took from my life as a yoga teacher that served me well: My determination to follow my passion and bring the best version of myself to the table every day. Within 48 hours of having the idea, I had built an amateur website and my first orders were coming in. I’d identified a gap in the market that publishers were desperate to have filled… but I had no idea how quickly my business would grow.
Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.
My love of copywriting was ignited when I signed up for one-on-one coaching sessions with copywriting expert Oliver El-Gorr. Writing my book descriptions wasn’t enough – I wanted more! I knew the problems other publishers were having with marketing, and it almost seemed like a no-brainer. I practiced every day, and then I just thought, “Why not give it a shot? I know this is a service publishers want.”
The big advantage I had was my husband’s business. Alongside his twin brother, Christian, Rasmus is the co-founder of PublishingLife, and they run a course (Audiobook Impact Academy (AIA)) for independent publishers. Their goal is to make sure their students produce high-quality books that sell… and their students are my target audience. As soon as I decided I was going to go for it, I created my landing page from Rasmus’ click funnel site and posted an image so customers could see the product I was selling.
Everything I did at that stage was very low-budget. I was using Rasmus’ site, and I simply asked customers to send their manuscripts to my email address for me to write their descriptions. I would work at home or out on the beach – I certainly wasn’t your classic power-suited entrepreneur. But I already had a captive audience – Rasmus and Christian’s students were looking for exactly the product I was selling.
The photo above illustrates my early days perfectly. Here I am meeting the founder of My Self Publishing Blueprint, Emeka Ossai. He was recording a shoutout video to help me drum up business – and I was doing exactly what he was helping me advertise: writing book descriptions on a beach in Bali.
Describe the process of launching the business.
The truth is, I had no idea what I was doing. Thankfully, Rasmus did, and he helped me out. He made a post in his Facebook group, telling his members that I was offering a book description service – and that gave me just the leg up I needed. There was an already-successful business advertising my business… I had no advertising costs, and I was being presented to a sea of customers whose problems I could clearly define. They didn’t want to write their book descriptions… and I was offering to take that off their shoulders.
Much as the launch took care of itself, I felt a lot of pressure at that time. The company was just me – it was my face behind the product, and whatever I produced reflected not only on me but on my husband too. I had to keep the quality high… and I had been on the other side of that community – I knew that there was plenty of gossip about writing services. I didn’t want to fall into the category of businesses whispered about for their clumsy writing or inferior products.
I hold my hands up and admit that I struggle with criticism, and this was even stronger when I first started the business. It made me feel genuinely sad if someone wasn’t satisfied with their order, and I went above and beyond to make sure that never happened. At the time, I was selling at a very low cost – just $15 per description – so in all honesty, the expectations probably weren’t as high as the standards I held myself to. But those high standards served me well. Quality has always been my Number One priority, and that remained true as the company started to grow. It also became more of a challenge.
I didn’t know how to hire writers or even what I was looking for. You’ve seen the picture of me writing on the beach – I didn’t appear all that professional, and consequently, not every applicant I got was of the highest quality. I learned some valuable life lessons there though, and I made it my mission to navigate freelance platforms like an eagle and learn how to attract the right people for every position I needed to fill. My ethos has remained the same, however: Even today, I would rather grow the company slowly and increase the prices than sacrifice quality in favor of quantity. Doing anything else is ultimately more stressful, and you end up with a lot more to deal with in terms of complaints. I want to be proud of what I create, and I want to make sure I’m always selling a service I would want to use myself. I honestly feel that there’s no weak link in the company – I know that every member of my team will provide a high-quality service.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
Again, I think it all comes back to having a quality product. If they know they’ll receive high quality every time they order, customers will come back – and this is clear in the behavior of our regular clients. Engaging with customers has also been critical. In the early days, we sent out a bi-weekly newsletter, and that had a really strong engagement. We still use newsletters now, and we’ve never needed a lot of advertisements. We did try Facebook Ads and YouTube Ads for a while, but the conversions weren’t high enough for the services we offer, so we decided that wasn’t a good investment.
Because most of our products are sold through referrals – either through AIA or other publishing courses – we have to make sure we have a strong presence in their Facebook groups and are constantly reaching out to course providers. Running product giveaways has always been effective for us. It allows us to show off our quality, and that has had a huge impact. People who have won giveaways have left such good reviews on Facebook that other people have been inspired to try our services – and again, quality keeps them coming back. We always share our good reviews. We’re proud of the quality we produce, and we want our customers to trust us – and that’s best done through hearing about other people’s positive experiences.
AIA was the first course we connected with, but we now work with other publishing courses, and these are connections we’re developing as we speak. We reach out to course providers and offer them special deals and giveaways – a free outline package for one of their students, for example, in return for the promotion of our services.
I think the other thing I would highlight here is that we identified our main product and focus very early on – and that’s the one we channel the most resources into improving. For Publishing Services, that’s our Book Outline Package. I have to tell you a funny story here – the truth is, I only added book outlines in the first place because they looked expensive in comparison to book descriptions. In those early days, I just wanted to sell book descriptions, but as I pushed the price up, I needed something to sit beside them and make them appear cheaper. I didn’t really think anyone would order a book outline… but they did, and then I found myself on another steep learning curve. I funneled everything into creating a high-quality product, and customers started to love them – to the extent that it soon became our best seller. We do offer different services, and we’re always eager to try new ones… But our focus will always be book descriptions and outlines. We’ll always offer them, and everything else is just icing on the cake.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
I had big dreams when I started Best Selling Book Descriptions in 2019, but I had no idea where the company would end up. As demand increased and the company grew, I realized I needed a strong management team. The family has always been important to me, and Publishing Services is a family… So bringing in my sister, Sarah Eberstadt, as a manager and my sister-in-law, Celine Mikkelsen, as chief editor was an easy decision. They had exactly the skills my business needed. Celine is a grammar aficionado, and Sarah has organizational and finance skills that far exceed my own. Her ambition and drive have helped the business to grow even further, and she has been integral to the company’s growth and success.
Appointing a management team I trust implicitly allowed me to take a step back and focus on raising my son, safe in the knowledge that day-to-day operations were taken care of and the company was in good hands – hands that would not only hold the business but allow it to flourish. My focus is now more behind-the-scenes. I’m currently working on an onboarding course for new writers and spending more time fostering connections. I’m building bridges with publishing courses, coaches, and the self-publishing community – and outsourcing the running of the company has enabled me to focus on those things, as well as raising my family.
If I’m being totally honest, family is my main focus. Work is relaxation time for me – it gives me the chance to do something I’m proud of, and I get such a huge high from that. I love having a final product I can stand behind, and I love interacting with the team. I still find it hard dealing with customers when they’re criticizing our services, and I’m so thankful for my manager, Tea, who does an incredible job with that side of things.
I’m proud to say that Publishing Services is a profitable company, as you can see from the revenue development since the first year of business. Those profits are shared with the management team and ensure that all our writers are compensated fairly. We now have 41 people on the team, in addition to our management team, and most of our outgoings are spent on them. Our sales still come from publishing courses, and we do our email marketing and product giveaways, so we have no advertising costs. We also have very little social media presence, besides our Facebook page. We post there every week and aim to deliver value with every post.
Like any company, we’re always working towards new goals. Right now, that’s adding new packages to our menu and growing our team to satisfy demand without sacrificing quality.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Publishing Services face all the hurdles commonly seen by entrepreneurs of all niches. Business growth is one of the most consistent challenges – there’s a lot of opportunity in offering more services and having more writers, but it’s important to me that we never compromise on quality. Finding and training high-quality writers and making sure the whole team is working at the same level is a time and labor-intensive process, so despite our growing customer base, we resist chasing quality over quantity. I started the company with quality at the forefront, and what I’ve learned is that I was right: This is truly the most important thing, and quantity will follow. We have designed a comprehensive training program to ensure that we add only the very best writers to our team and maintain a consistent standard.
I’ve also learned a lot from operating a business with a team from all across the world. My team is made up of freelancers, and they must stay loyal. After all, they could go somewhere else at any time. The nature of having most of our customers come from publishing courses is that there are fluctuations in orders. Sometimes we have more; sometimes we have less, and that means we need our writers to not only trust us but be willing to take on extra work or write in niches that aren’t necessarily in their comfort zone. It’s important that in leaner months, they trust that more orders are coming and that we’ve identified the reason for the fluctuation.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
Like our advertising strategy, our use of business tools is minimal. We like to keep operations simple, so we rely on Shopify for receiving and processing orders. We use Slack for all team communications, and we use Asana to connect ghostwriters and customers for individual projects. We also use Loom for training and communication purposes – with a team spread across different time zones, it’s really helpful to be able to record messages and leave them for team members to pick up when their work day starts.
Because our team is made up of freelancers, many of the tools companies commonly use to increase productivity and the like aren’t relevant to us. Each team member manages their workload and works to assigned deadlines – and because of our careful recruiting process, we’ve never run into problems with this system.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
The single most influential book on my journey has been Copywriting Secrets by Jim Edwards. I sent this to everyone on the team in the first year of business. I learned so much from this book when I was writing myself, and I wanted my core team to have that same benefit. Since then, I’ve been more focused on growing in the industry and having conversations with other people. Ironically, I have to confess I’ve never been much of a book person. I do read business books and listen to business podcasts as they come under my radar, but I’d say connecting with other people in the industry is my biggest source of inspiration.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
The biggest piece of advice I could give is this: If there’s a way to get your product in front of an existing audience, do it! Presenting descriptions to AIA’s audience allowed me to get started within 48 hours. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a professional brand image yet – if you have a high-quality product, you have the main thing covered. Once you want to start growing your business, then it’s time to start investing in design and marketing. I’d recommend investing all your profits back into the business in those early stages – keep your income modest, and funnel the money back into your company. It will pay off in the long run.
The other thing I would say is to stay vigilant to shiny object syndrome: Stick to one business idea, no matter what setbacks you face. It takes resilience, but think of giants like Paypal and Amazon – they didn’t become what they are overnight.
Lastly, I think fostering a nurturing company culture is essential if you want to retain a high-quality and productive team. Our management team is all female, and I think this has had a profound impact on our management style. Our team is the heart and soul of the company, and treating them as the family I feel them to be has been crucial to the success of the company.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
I’d love to say we are, but we just finished a big hiring campaign for copywriters, and we’re currently focused on training them. That said, we’re always on the lookout for hidden gems, and talented copywriters, ghostwriters, editors, and designers are always welcome to reach out.
Where can we go to learn more?
The advantage of our minimal use of tools and platforms is that we’re very simple to find – simply visit our website or our Facebook page, and you’ll find everything you need.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
