Winnifred Tataw, Wins Books Publishing

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses. But first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the creator space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, how can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three?

Every week, I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey. These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

Today's guest is Winnifred Tataw, an author and the founder of Win’s Books Publishing. She started her company as a way to publish her own books. Winnifred, welcome to the show.

[00:00:56] Winnifred Tataw: Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

[00:00:58] Sanjay Parekh: So, I'm excited to have you on because book publishing is something that I feel like all of us feel like we should do at some point and then it's just so daunting.

So I'm going to ask you questions about that. But before we get to that, give me a couple of minutes about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:13] Winnifred Tataw: And so I have been writing for most of, if not all my life, and I've been doing it professionally for about eight years and publishing my written work for about five years. And I started doing my series called the God Science Series, where it's about fantasy, family dynamics, and all that mixed in with childhood trauma, which is fun.

And with that, after I started, of course, the pandemic happened, so everyone was at home. I was at home, and I wanted to find new ways, interesting ways to support the indie publishing community. And I found that through doing interviews and spotlights, and that's what really helped me. Kickstarted Win’s Books, not just for me, but for other authors and also as its own business to support authors.

And with that, as I continue to grow, meet new authors, meet new writers, some of them were like, "Hey, you're good at this. Can you publish my stories? Can you publish my manuscripts?" And I was like, "I hope so. I can try."

[00:02:28] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. Kind of like when the market is telling you what to do, and you have to figure it out. So, is this the first time you've done something entrepreneurial or are there any other entrepreneurs in the family?

[00:02:40] Winnifred Tataw: Yeah, I think I'm a lone, well, homage to Texas, a lone star in that front. A lot of my family here in America and back home have had smaller businesses, but it hasn't been as, I say, proactive or robust as I have done where I do everything all the time.

Most of my family are doctors and nurses. And then the occasional, well, pastors too. It's a big job market in my family, it seems. I really did branch out from the norm.

[00:03:24] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. What was the reaction of the family when you were like, yeah, I'm going to go do this other weird thing that's not like any of y'all?

What did they have to say about that?

[00:03:34] Winnifred Tataw: So my immediate family, so my parents were very much yes, do this. We got you. They've always been the outliers because my dad is an auto technician and then my mom was in the military. So, they already weren't in the mold themselves. So, it was very easy for them to be like, yeah, we support you.

And I'm like, okay, I'm going to go draw and paint pretty pictures. They're like, do it. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to go write about dragons and time travels. They're like, do it. And I'm like, okay. But, my family was very much, "Okay. If it works." It was a lot of like, "All right. that's different."

[00:04:21] Sanjay Parekh: But how are you going to make money, exactly?

[00:04:24] Winnifred Tataw: Yeah, that was where it was usually like teetering, like no one wanted to ask because they're polite, but they're right. But it is, will you be able to feed yourself?

[00:04:38] Sanjay Parekh: So, who exactly are you going to be living with during all of this? Yeah. That's most people, I think, that don't understand us as entrepreneurs and the journey that we're on and the things that, there are valuable things that we do that people will pay us for. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not true.

Okay, so you had all these people asking you to do, okay can you publish this? So, is that how the business started or how did you figure out how to start this thing and figure out the publishing process and all of that for yourself?

[00:05:13] Winnifred Tataw: Yeah, so what I really did, I used myself as a guinea pig. I started publishing in 2019. I published my first book in January of 2019. And I had no clue what I was doing. And I thought, you know what, all I got to do is put it out there. I'm going to be a bestseller. I'm going to be sitting on millions in two weeks. Easy peasy, because it happens to everybody and then two weeks came and then February came and then March came and I'm like, what did I not do? What happened? I'm not a millionaire yet. I haven't made all the magazines and brand deals. Like I'm still so confused.

And ironically, as a marketing major, I should have known that you have to market your book, which I was like, oh no, I'm the only person who published a book in January of 2019. Surely everybody was going to see my book out of the only one, only fantasy novel that was published in January of 2019. I was the only one clearly so.

[00:06:20] Sanjay Parekh: Honestly, that's we've been waiting five years to get you on the podcast because we saw that book in January 2019 and be like Winnifred at some point is going to get on the podcast.

So, clearly that's true. Okay. Yeah, so six weeks passed you were not a millionaire in six weeks.

What did you do?

[00:06:40] Winnifred Tataw: So, I slightly freaked out but then I was, another layer is I was also in college at this time. So, I was like, well, let me finish finals and then I'll get back to this. And once I did that, I started doing research.

I said, okay, I have to market. What do I do when I market? You've got to research, started researching what I needed to do and realize, okay, this is going to be an investment I need to make. And I had to sit down with myself and think, do I want to make the investment to start this venture? Or do I want to just, again, just put it out there and maybe, family, friends, I send them a book, they pay me my, $10, $20, maybe I do a few like a workshop and I sell like maybe five and go about my day. Or did I really want to create a business that is sustainable and a career path for myself? So, I gave myself to January of that, or excuse me, December of that year, to really research and think things over and see how I could do this and decided, you know what? Yes, I am going to take this venture. I am going to do the investment and take the time to learn this and learn the industry and ask questions and really try to integrate myself into the publishing world the best I could, because I said that I did want to make this a long-term achievement and goal.

[00:08:18] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, tell me a little bit, you touched upon it before, tell me like the plot or kind of the theory of the books that you write yourself. So, it's dragons and time travel, those two things mostly, I guess, go together. But generally, tell me the arena that you're working in.

[00:08:35] Winnifred Tataw: Yes, so I write mainly fantasy and sci fi. And it's set in the modern world. And I have a mythology system of four gods. The god of time, space, death, and life, and they have acolytes who are their children of earth that kind of help them, make sure the world doesn't explode, in layman's terms.

And the story follows the main character, Roderick, or one of the main characters, Roderick, he's also a prince and also the acolyte of time. And Roderick has had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him since he was a baby. He has very bad parents and he's struggled with dealing with societal pressures of being a prince and then also being the time acolyte and then also being the middle child.

So, he's just literally had everything, I've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at that poor man's head. And so, the story follows him, and another princess named Princess Arcelia as they navigate their early 20s, and healing traumas of childhood, of family. The theme of forgiveness ends up, you can be raised by the same two parents and have a completely different childhood from your siblings.

And, seeing those dynamics, in sibling and dynamics as they get older, how do you stay connected? How do you guys bond without it being through the trauma you've experienced from your parents. So, a lot of the, behind the fantasy and the dragons and the time travel, it is a lot about those familial themes and connections and how they interwork with ourselves, and how do we really navigate and make us who we are and what choices we make in life.

[00:10:30] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, you've written these books, and then decided to then start doing this for other people as a publishing house. How did you make that transition for yourself? Because I think it's a very different skill set being an author versus being a publisher, right?

[00:10:47] Winnifred Tataw: Yes. So, I've always been very organized and always been very like, okay, these are the steps I need to take to create a book, to do this, to edit.

And I've done, at the time, I was still doing workshops, with other writers and authors on how to set up a plot, how to write a strong character. Doing that, and then in lieu of also doing the spotlights and always being like the person people are like, hey, I'm a new author. I was sent to you to get some advice.

So, with that came, authors or writers who were like, hey, you seem to know what you're doing from point A to Z. Can you do this for me? Because I don't know what I'm doing. And I feel like I'm going to get screwed over if I go to somebody else. I decided, I was like, okay, I, did this for myself, I self-published.

I cannot do that for other people. I have to have other people doing the editing. I have to have other people doing the book covers. It could have been easy for me to say, oh yeah, I can take on all these different authors and writers and I do everything myself. And I market and I edit and I format and I distribute.

And I said, absolutely not, because I hate doing it for just me. So, imagine doing it for one, two, three, four, eight, ten. I said, absolutely not. So, what I did, I took about six months to really build a team of everybody from I call them pre-publishing, content to the publication process and then to post publication process, and make sure there was someone in each role of that.

So we have editors, we have book cover designers, we have marketers, PR. It's not just Winnie doing everything, because I hate doing everything for just my book. So, I was like, why would I do that for someone else? And I'm so thankful I didn't do it by myself because I love keeping track of everyone and I can do that.

But yeah, I, just, trying to just imagine myself trying to complete three different manuscripts and edit them all in the same month. So, I was like, yeah, it's a good thing I did not decide to do this on my own.

[00:13:26] Sanjay Parekh: So how do you differentiate yourself then from other publishers, either indie publishers or kind of big-name label publishers? What's the difference?

[00:13:37] Winnifred Tataw: I think one of the main differences is I am an author myself, and I published before I started the company, and I was asked to do it. A lot of publishers and indie publishers usually, they see a need and they're like, you know what? I'm going to take this on versus me.

The need came to me and was like, no, you're going to do this. And I'm like, okay. And I tried to stay both professional, of course, but make sure there is an open level of communication and conversation with all of my authors. I make sure to check on them once a month.

Make sure — I call it homework — everyone's doing their homework month to month, letting them know, these are what we're doing for the next month. This is what we're working on. Now, if they have questions, I'm here to answer them. I don't want it to be where you just give me your manuscript and then I disappear for 12 to 18 months and then you reappear and okay, I have a book. No, every month, every up until publication and post publication, we're here with you, holding your hand to help you also learn the publishing process.

Because I think that's the biggest thing, a lot of people who have not published don't know exactly what happens. Not everybody, but some people who, if you ask them, who's your editor and what type of editing they did, they're like, I don't know. Let me just fix my grammar, so I really wanted to make sure my authors knew the process from A to Z and knew what was happening, how it's happening and be informed.

So if they do decide to publish elsewhere, or go with a bigger publisher in the future, or decide to self-publish, but I have not gotten anyone who wants to do that. They're like, no, Winnie, you got this.

But, yeah, they are well informed, and they understand, what to ask and what to expect to from the process.

[00:15:51] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. How many, authors are you working at, any point in time? What's the number?

[00:15:57] Winnifred Tataw: Right now, we're at eight. And we closed submissions. So, submissions, we opened them officially this year in April and we closed them in October.

So from April to October is when we have submissions for manuscripts. And yes, usually it's anywhere from 8 to 15 authors I'm either helping publish or working with or talking to. And that's just if they're doing the full publishing process. Others who may be, say, just doing marketing or editing, it can get up to about 20 in one quarter at the time.

So, there's never a dull moment for Win’s books.

[00:16:40] Sanjay Parekh: So, the authors that you're working with, are they all in the same genre of stories as you or what's the genre that you cover?

[00:16:49] Winnifred Tataw: So ironically, I'm still the only fantasy author in and I feel like the.

[00:16:57] Sanjay Parekh: You're the one that does it, as we remember from January of 2019.

[00:17:01] Winnifred Tataw: That's true.

I'm the only one since 2019. I keep forgetting, but yeah, I always look at it. I'm like, well, I hope no other fantasy authors are like, you go onto the Win’s Books publishing website and it's just pink glitter and sparkle and then you see memoirs and romance and thrillers. And you see just one fantasy, and you're like, I don't think she really is open to publishing other fantasy authors outside of me and no, y'all are awesome.

Yes, we do all fiction and speculative fiction. We'll be doing poetry in 2025. And we also do nonfiction. We usually stick to memoirs, poetry, of course, gets into that genre sometimes. But yeah, usually memoirs for nonfiction, and then speculative fiction, and then just anything that's not real, we're there.

[00:18:05] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, for you, like running this, how long has it been now running the publishing company?

[00:18:11] Winnifred Tataw: So, we actually opened earlier this year. So, we made the announcements and started accepting publications last year. Win’s Books has been here in its entirety since 2022. Again, pandemic, right? So I was, that's when I think it went from a side hustle to a small business was around that time.

But yeah, so we've been, of course, I've been publishing since 2019, but we have now officially been publishing since 2024. And 2025 is just going to be a monster of how many books are going to be publishing next year too.

[00:18:55] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, so then in thinking about this and looking forward, how are you thinking about success for yourself in the business?

Is it based on the number of books? Is it based on the amount of money that you make or the amount of money that you make for your authors? What's the thing that you're focused on for saying yeah, this was a successful year?

[00:19:17] Winnifred Tataw: Yes. I think it's of course one, breaking even, and then having money after, if you haven't got gross profit and that can look as, I don't look at just book sales because we also do merchandise.

Authors might have pens, books, t shirts, things like that. So, I look at that overall product sale. And just book sales. Of course, book sales are the most, the biggest, big point, but, and I can't really count authors because if one author says sells a thousand books and then one sells 200, that's only two authors, but you just sold 1200 books.

I definitely do love our small, ever growing, community. Growing a lot faster than I expected, a band of authors and, but yeah, to stay on track. I think that's really how I calculate that we are having a successful year. Is that making sure that all of our overhead costs are being covered.

We're not in the red any time ever and employees so far. We haven't been in the red since we got our LLC and started to be a full-time small business. And with every year, I hope to just double what we made last year.

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[00:20:59] Sanjay Parekh: So, let's switch gears a little bit. Talk about the stress of managing a business and juggling all of these things. How do you think about that for yourself and how do you think about boundaries for yourself as well? In terms of the business.

[00:21:13] Winnifred Tataw: I think it's hard. Sometimes it's fairly easy, when we're not doing a lot of, say, events and workshops and meetings. So, some months it's easy to be like, okay, yeah, Monday through Friday. We're not really doing anything Saturday or Sunday. We can keep it simple, keep it cute, keep it short and sweet. And then you have months like our July and our April and May where we were traveling every weekend and we were interviewing and talking to other authors almost every other day, scheduling things, onboarding new people to Win’s Books.

And it's harder to keep that simple, I would say, work life balance because you just have so much. But what I do is if I do have those busier months, I try to make sure that the next month, it's as slow as we can be. We're going at a turtle pace where it's just maybe one event for the full month and then just check ins with authors. So again, we can pace ourselves. Because I found out if I try to go, and just hopefully get to like holiday season, I am stressed, tired, and I'm sick of everyone. I'm sick of books. I'm sick of writing. That doesn't do well for anybody.

Usually, I try to make sure we do of course stick to our Monday through Friday schedule, but if life happens, things happen, hurricanes happen. So sometimes things get pushed back. So, I try to, if we are really busy one week, then the next week or the week after, I try to make sure we at least have that space or time for everyone to breathe.

I'm not getting overwhelmed and then no one who's working on books or even the writers who are, again, overwhelmed with a copious amount of work too.

[00:23:13] Sanjay Parekh: So, you've been doing this for a little while. If you could go back in time and do something differently, is there something that stands out to you that you're like, oh, I wish I could have done this a different way now that I know what I know?

[00:23:25] Winnifred Tataw: Oh, yeah, it definitely would be actually marketing the book. When it's getting published and not just making two posts on Facebook and closing my computer and thinking that was it.

[00:23:37] Sanjay Parekh: Six weeks, millionaire. That's a done deal. Yeah.

[00:23:41] Winnifred Tataw: It was actually me making out a strategic marketing plan and following through with it.

I think that, any author, whether you are traditionally published, whether you are hybrid or indie published, you are going to, in some way, shape, or form, going to have to market your work. And that's one thing where a lot of writers think, oh, I'm a traditionally published author. I don't have to really market or put PR for my book.

And it's well, if you think of it, you're not the only, again, you're not the only writer or author that's being published by that company and say that day, they might publish 50 books a day and you're just one of 50. So, you have to now go and push and you might just be one of 50 of the same genre too.

And then they publish another 50 in the next day and the next really making sure that your marketing is usually marketing, editing, I think are always going to be the biggest things. And for me, I think I really would have pushed more to market my book better. And with that, I think I would have had more time to edit my book better and have my cover design - our main cover designer now, she's great. I would have been able to call her earlier and be like, hey, I need help.

[00:24:58] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Is there like a, do you a standard marketing plan now? Like you've been through this, is there like a, okay, this is what we're going to do? And then you just modify some pieces of it depending on the author? Or how do you handle that?

[00:25:13] Winnifred Tataw: Yes. So, we have a month to month, a book launch plan and we take about 12 to 18 months to publish a book. And with every month, it's something new. So, every author has the same components, but they just might be mixed in different ways. So, one author and the first two months, they'll be doing their cover design, because maybe they're editing.

They had a smaller book. They didn't need a lot of time to edit. So, we can already start going for cover design for them. Whereas some authors who have larger books who, this is their second draft. And you really need to cut things out or add things in and really process things.

Their editing might be the first thing we're doing up until month four and then we start doing the cover design and then you have some authors where they're doing it in tandem. So, every month we're flip flopping. Okay, now we've done this. Now we can start on this. So, every author does get a marketing, or book launch plan.

And they, again, all have the same components, but they're all catered to different audiences. That manuscript, and it's needs and then also the office needs.

[00:26:30] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Last question for you. What would you tell somebody who's thinking about taking the leap and turning their side hustle into a full-time business like you? Not necessarily publishing, could be anything. What advice would you give?

[00:26:46] Winnifred Tataw: I would definitely say do your research first, see if your side hustle is something that you can scale, if it is making hair bow pins for guinea pigs, research that market and see if that's the thing that you can, do. If you want it to be your full-time gig and your full time income, do you think with the market, can you scale out to making hair bow pins for guinea pigs to be a long time investment?

I don't own any guinea pigs. I don't know why that is, but, after you do that research, really hone in and see what parts of the whole business you are comfortable with doing. Do you want to do just overhead? Do you want to also do production? Want to help with distribution?

And see if you need to do this by yourself. If you need to bring on a partner, do you have time? So, see what parts that you think you can handle, and how much of that you can handle. And then, go from there. I think it's, everyone's, I say everyone, you can never have too many books.

I think there can never be too many small businesses. Everyone has a new idea and there's always a need for something. Just research it, see your market, understand it and see what makes you unique and special to other people within that market and how you can hone that into create a business that is profitable and what steps you need to take to do that and also ask questions. I think people are afraid to ask questions, but don't be afraid to ask questions. I promise you no one, well, I can't say no one, but most people are happy to answer questions, just going to your local market or convention or expo.

Or just asking a friend that you know, who has a small business, Hey, how did you start? Or what were the, if you could start over, what would you do better? Or listen to podcasts like these. I think that can also really help you better situate yourself. If you want to, again, take time and really, Invest in that hard work to make it work because you're going to have to invest either time, money or effort, usually all three.

So just make sure if you're if you want to really do this, make sure you're gung-ho on making sure it's going to be successful. You have to do it.

[00:29:28] Sanjay Parekh: Winnie, this has been fantastic. Where can our listeners find and connect with you online?

[00:29:33] Winnifred Tataw: So I am pretty much everywhere @Wins Books. So WINS Books at Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or X, Pinterest, YouTube, everywhere. TikTok, and our website as well. We have two websites, so winsbookspublishing.com is our publishing website and then winsbooks.blog is our blogging website, and also where you can find all our blogs about indie publishing, about my writing, and about all the amazing authors we've met along the way.

[00:30:06] Sanjay Parekh: Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[00:30:09] Winnifred Tataw: Thank you for having me. This was great.

[00:30:11] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.