Beyond Better with Stacy Ennis

A book launch party is a special moment for an author. After many months—often years—of working on a book, the launch party is the moment to celebrate the incredible achievement of authorhood.

But here’s the thing: while a launch party can be fun and exciting, a successful party requires planning and execution. That’s why I’m so excited to get to share this week’s episode, a conversation with Virginia Frischkorn of Partytrick.

Virginia is the founder and CEO of Partytrick, a tech platform built to disrupt the event industry, helping to make planning and executing highly curated events accessible and convenient for everyone. Throughout her fourteen-year career in the event industry, she has gained prestige among her peers as one of the top event planners in the country, including being named best wedding planner by Vogue, Brides, and Over the Moon.

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I’ve been in the publishing industry for more than thirteen years. And while I don’t claim expertise as a publisher—I anchor heavily to the writing side of the industry—I’ve been around long enough and seen enough to know things are not as they should be.

In 2020, I was cautiously optimistic that things might change. As racial protests broke out across the country, big publishers sought out more voices of color. But it turned out that they were offering these voices a fraction of what their white counterparts made. The hashtag #publishingpaidme went viral as authors began sharing numbers. The discrepancies were shocking. One white author, for example, shared her $400,000 advance as a relatively unknown first-time author; a black author who had won a National Book Award shared how she had to fight for a $100,000 advance.

To put this into perspective, most authors only pocket about one-third of their advances after taxes and expected marketing expenses. A book can take a year or more to write. A net gain of $30,000 isn’t much, especially for a proven author.

Compound that with an assessment by The New York Times. After reviewing fiction books published by major publishers between 1950 and 2018, they found that 95 percent were written by white authors.

Things have gotten better, but they’re nowhere near equitable. More in this week’s episode.

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In this week’s podcast episode, I share an update on our life here and what we’re thinking through as the kids get older. I talk through some of the cons of living in the Algarve and the pros of the life we lead. I talk through the balance we’ve been able to achieve here and how intertwined our everyday life is with nature. And I share the challenges we’re facing as we consider life beyond our kids’ elementary school years.

We love our life here—but will it be enough for us in the long term? Listen in this week as I share where we are and what we’re exploring next.

Learn more about our journey in Portugal here.

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Jeffrey is often described as an advocate for self-employed business owners. His journey began with selling eggs door-to-door at fourteen years old to becoming one of the most sought-after portrait photographers for affluent families in the U.S. in his twenties, a business he ran for more than three decades.

Today, Jeffrey is an author, the host of The Self-Employed Life podcast with nearly two-million downloads, and the founder of the Self-Employed Business Institute.

In this episode, we talk about the journey of self-employment and why he doesn’t love the term “solopreneur.” We also dig into marketing strategies for attracting ideal clients, including his Hug Marketing method.

This is a fun conversation about the joys and hardships of self-employment, the challenges business owners face, and how to build a business you love.

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Amy Mangueira experienced the full range of life’s wild ride, all the way to rock bottom, when she hit such extreme burnout that she permanently lost hearing in her left ear. On the pod this week, we talk about what led her to this moment—and what she’s done to find her way back to balance.

Amy is a 4x entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker on a mission to rid the world of burnout. Amy’s goal is education and coaching women to find balance in their careers and live by putting themselves first.

In this episode, we discuss how Americans are conditioned for “grind mode,” a hustle-til-you-have-a-breakdown mindset that keeps many people exhausted and dissatisfied with their lives. She shares how she took steps to break free from burnout and rebuild her life—and offers ideas for how you can do the same.

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Looking to build a platform to establish yourself as a thought leader? I've got you covered. This week's solo episode dives deeply into both the experience of building one (mine) and nine practical steps to build yours.

Whether you're an aspiring or published author, entrepreneur, or looking to build a powerful personal brand, this episode is for you. Best of all, I’ve created a free, detailed guide to walk you through each of the steps.

Download the guide here: stacyennis.com/platformguide

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Jovelle Fernandez is the author of The Expat. She’s also an obstetrician gynecologist with a subspecialty in reproductive endocrinology, infertility, and oncology, as well as a multi-award-winning and highly respected health care executive.

In this conversation, we talk about her unique experiences of an expatriate, including various challenges living and working as a foreigner in academia in a male-dominated society and in the corporate world, while juggling the demands of work and family as a wife and mother. She shares her advice for getting out of your comfort zone and becoming the best version of yourself.

We also discuss her book-writing journey and why the experience of writing was deeply meaningful for her. She shares how she grew through her author journey and why everyone should write a book. If you’ve ever dreamed of living abroad, writing a book, or following another big dream, don’t miss this episode.

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This week, I’m answering some of my guests’ latest questions about the book-writing process. From refining and clarifying your book idea to how to properly cite others’ work, this episode is highly practical. I also discuss some behind the scenes about ghostwriting, including different ways you can engage a ghostwriter and how I structure fees.

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In this episode, we talk through how to transplant your career—essentially, how to do the same thing you’re doing now, but in another area. We discuss practical steps to move abroad, how to set expectations, and the mindset needed to successfully move to another country. We also cover Vanessa’s fifteen income streams (!) and how she is working hard now to secure her financial future.

Vanessa and I are in different life stages. She’s younger than I, without kids, and in the phase of hustle and build. I remember so well the stage of building, and I love that while Vanessa is able to bring a different perspective than I have, we connect on so many aspects of this beautiful, challenging, wild, unpredictable, amazing life that is location independence.

If you’ve ever dreamt of living abroad, this is your episode.

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In this podcast episode, I speak with Plottr’s founder, Cameron Sutter, and education lead, Troy Lambert, about their powerful outlining software.

I am a planner. I build a vision, strategy, and tactical plan for nearly everything I do. And that includes book writing. In my own work, I create detailed book outlines. And in my self-study book-writing program, I spend the first four lessons teaching aspiring authors how to outline a powerful nonfiction book. That’s why I get excited about tools like Plottr.

For professional writers and editors, Plottr could be a game changer for client communication—aiding in showing versus explaining a writing or editing plan. Plottr can also be a helpful diagnostic tool for self-editing. If you’ve struggled with book outlining, or if you’re following my system and want to bring your sticky notes into a digital format, don’t miss this episode.

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