What needs to go into a training manual if you are teaching physical skills? How can you focus in on your super fans and create only for them, while still making a living from multiple streams of income? Guy Windsor explains more in this interview.

In the intro, Amazon celebrates a decade of Kindle Unlimited and indie authors do really well!; Written Word Media has announced a new partnership with RetireHub, an innovative online community for retirees; Levels of author success [Draft2Digital]; Indie Writers Club; Blood Vintage book trailer and Kickstarter campaign.

Plus, Oprah's AI special [Variety]; Women using AI less than men [The Economist];
Amazon is revamping Alexa to use Anthropic’s Claude [The Verge]

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Today’s show is sponsored by Findaway Voices by Spotify, the platform for independent authors who want to unlock the world’s largest audiobook platforms. Take your audiobook everywhere to earn everywhere with Findaway Voices by Spotify. Go to findawayvoices.com/penn to publish your next audiobook project.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

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Guy Windsor is a consulting swordsman, teacher, and author specializing in medieval and renaissance Italian swordsmanship. He runs SwordSchool and is the host of The Sword Guy Podcast.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• Creating freedom with multiple streams of income





• Automating and outsourcing non-creative work





• Key aspects to consider when creating a training manual





• The importance of photo quality in print books





• Why write a book instead of produce an online course?





• Marketing a very niche genre





• Tips for building your online author store

You can find Guy at Swordschool.shop or Swordschool.com.

Transcript of Interview with Guy Windsor

Joanna: Guy Windsor is a consulting swordsman, teacher, and author specializing in medieval and renaissance Italian swordsmanship. He runs SwordSchool and is the host of The Sword Guy Podcast. Today, we're talking about his book, From Your Head to Their Hands: How to write, publish, and market training manuals for Historical Martial Artists. So welcome back to the show, Guy.

Guy: Thanks, Jo. Lovely to be here.

Joanna: Yes, great to talk to you again. Now, you were last on the show back in 2021 when you talked about pivoting your business from in-person to online and scalable, which was much needed in the pandemic. So just give us an update as to how that change has gone for you, how your business looks today, and—

What are your multiple streams of income?

Guy: Well, I actually made that pivot in around 2015 because I needed to get location independence so I could move my family from Finland to the UK because of elderly parents.

That was just super lucky timing because then the pandemic occurred, and we were fine because we were living off books and courses, which did really well during the pandemic. Rather than me living off in-person teaching, which I'd been doing before.

So it's blissful, honestly. The difference between if I don't show up to work, I don't get paid, and well, if I feel like taking three months off to go do this creative project or do something with my kids or whatever, I can do that, and it won't make a really big difference in the short term. It's just so freeing, which means, among other things, I can work on pretty much anything I like.

Now, you asked about multiple streams of income, and you sent me the question beforehand, so I made a list. So there's books, which are training manuals, mostly. There's also some translations and other things, which are in print, ebook, and some of them are also in audio. Then online courses.

Those are the two really big earners. The two of those together is like 90% of my income. The rest of it comes from in-person seminars, which is actually my favorite thing. I travel around all over the place teaching seminars in America and Singapore and New Zealand and wherever. It’s fantastic, but it's really, really demanding.

Then I have my own social media site called SwordPeople, which brings in some income. I have a Patreon which brings in a tiny bit of income.

I also, back in 2007, the warehouse space next door to the warehouse space we were using as a training space came on the market, so I bought it. So my students there are renting that space off me. So that's another income stream.

I also have merch, like t-shirts and whatnot, which hardly sell anything at all. So if anyone wants a really cool t shirt, I can point them in the right direction.

So like by platform, my Teachable account is the single biggest chunk of money coming in monthly. Then my wide books as an aggregate, I don't really pay attention to the different platforms there. My Shopify store would be third.

Rent on the space would be fourth. Then seminars, teaching in person, SwordPeople, and all the other stuff is sort of the tail end.

Joanna: That's great, and let's just point out that you started out by saying it was blissful. When people hear that whole list, they might be thinking, oh my goodness. How big is your team? How many hours do you work?

Just talk about how the structure of this works and how automated it is.

Guy: I do all the actual creative stuff for myself, and I produce an average of, I suppose, a book a year and an online course a year, something like that.

I have an assistant who is fabulous, and she does the tedious admin stuff. She started out by doing the transcriptions for my podcast, and then she kind of took over all of the writing the show notes, naming the episodes, uploading them everywhere, getting them all in the right place at the right time.

Then she took on my newsletter as well. So I write it, but she does all the formatting, and making sure all the links are right, and all that sort of thing.

So I've outsourced as much as possible of the stuff that involves, shall we say, spreadsheets. I have an allergy to spreadsheets, so if it involves a spreadsheet, I hire a professional. Katie is excellent at spreadsheets.