Ruth Soukup is a blogger at Living Well Spending Less, the founder of the Living Well Planner, and the author of Living Well Spending Less: 12 Secrets of the Good Life. Ruth encourages more than a million monthly readers of her blog to follow their dreams and reach their goals through easy to implement tips and strategies for saving time and money while focusing on the things that matter the most. She lives in Florida with her husband Chuck and their two daughters Maggie and Annie. Ruth began thinking about writing a book when she was blogging full-time at Living Well Spending Less and her husband was staying at home with the kids. She wanted to encapsulate the knowledge from her blog into a book and she came out with her first book which was How To Blog For Profit: Without Selling Your Soul. She had no expectations when she put this out there as a Kindle book. The first version did better than she had anticipated, so she put out a second version that was longer and included a paperback version. The success of her first self-published book gave her the confidence to create her first traditionally published book. Although, the creation process for Living Well Spending Less was much more personal and difficult. We talk about the book creation process. The importance of having an accountability partner. How books can lead to other opportunities like products, courses, consulting and more. Enjoy the interview as we deep dive into Ruth’s writing and business success.   You can find Ruth here: Living Well Spending Less Living Well Planner Living Well Spending Less on Facebook @RuthSoukup on Twitter Living Well Spending Less: 12 Secrets of the Good Life How To Blog For Profit: Without Selling Your Soul Unstuffed 31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero: Freeze Your Spending. Change Your Life 31 Days To A Clutter Free Life: One Month to Clear Your Home, Mind & Schedule Elite Blog Academy   Show Notes [01:39] Ruth's first idea for writing a book and was based on her blog and was called How to Blog For Profit Without Selling Your Soul. [04:00] This book taking off allowed Ruth to launch a whole new side to her business as she developed an online blogging course. [06:10] How Ruth went from publishing a book to launching a course and consulting. [07:04] The creation process of writing Ruth's first book just kind of flowed for her. [07:55] Living Well Spending Less her first traditionally published book was much more difficult because it was so personal for her. [08:42] Writing her second traditionally published book was much easier. [09:03] When Ruth's focuses on how she can serve it makes the writing much easier. [09:46] How Ruth got through the low points of writing Living Well Spending Less. [10:56] Ruth's accountability partner and the structure of their calls and their agreement, to be honest, and open. [12:52] Ruth sets aside a couple hours each morning for content creation. During book writing time, she gets up at 4:00 am and goes to her downtown office to get stuff done. [15:53] How Ruth realized that having products was more profitable than ad revenue. [17:01] How the books lead into other money makers, although they make money and build credibility. [20:23] Once someone reads your book, you are way more connected to that person, and it is a great way to grow an audience. [20:54] How Living Well Spending Less had perfect timing with publishing because that was a busy time for her blog which really led to promotion opportunities. [23:12] Downside of Amazon cross promotion is that the wider audience may not be as targeted, such as people not appreciating bible verses in the book. [24:20] They promoted the book with a 12 Secrets email challenge. They filmed the challenge with two versions one for Christmas and one that was evergreen. [25:58] They also emailed their list when there were book coupons available on Amazon. [27:32] A digital bonus of a home planning workbook was also a great idea. They also offered website acces