We recently connected with Bob Mcgough and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Bob thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I’m not yet earning a full-time living as a creative. But I feel like I am heading down the path to getting there, and moving a bit quicker each year of my journey. I’m huge proponent for transparency, so I don’t mind sharing that last year I earned a bit over ten thousand dollars as a creative. Full time money? No. But not something to sneeze at either I think.

There are a few things I wish I had done differently, that I think would have sped things up a bit.

First was having more confidence in myself. I started my journey in 2012, but only really began to take it super seriously in 2020. And that was because I spent most of those intervening years lacking in the faith in myself that I COULD be a successful author. If I’d had that, I would likely have started my self publishing journey several years earlier, would have been attending conventions as a guest and vendor years earlier, and would have been building my brand and followers years earlier.

My single biggest regret is not starting my newsletter the day I started my journey as a creative. It’s still the best marketing tool in a creatives toolkit, and every so often I am hit with a pang of regret as I think about six or seven years of missed email list building that I could have done. If I had built it out earlier, I would have had far more emails on my list when I published my first novel, which would have led to more sales. More sales, more reviews, and a better chance of moving up the Amazon rankings, all missed out on because I didn’t take the plunge.

Bob , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m the author Bob McGough, and I am best known as the author of the Jubal County Saga, an Urban Fantasy book series about a redneck wizard with a crippling meth addiction. Set in the region of southern Alabama that I was born and raised in, I try to portray what life is really like in the south, the beauty, the ugly, the weird…plus wizards. Beyond this series I have deal with Falstaff Books to publish a horror novel of mine in 2025 through their Falstaff Dread imprint. I am also working a horror trilogy set in this same world, that will be coming out in 2025 as well.

Outside of that I am also a podcaster and head of the Tales by Bob Podcast network. The flagship show is Books, Beards, Booze where my co-hosts and I primarily discuss…well…books, beards, and booze. I also run Bearded Bard Inkworks, a micro-press that publishes tabletop rpg content. I’ve long been a fan of the indie rpg space, and this is how I choose to primarily foray into it, by creating and publishing simple roleplaying games that are long on creativity and short on rules.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The dream of course is to be a full time author. But along the way my mission is to educate as many people as I can on just how to chase this dream. To this end I am a huge proponent of transparency. Each month I do a recap post on my blog where I give the real stats on how my sales went, how my social media numbers grew (or shrank), what I tried differently that month, things like that. I couple that with blog summaries of each event I take part in, from large conventions to small pop up markets. I also break down each book launch, giving the real numbers of how my sales went, how I set up my marketing, and what I want to do better with next time.

I also host a ton of free educational resources that I have made along the way. I get paid to teach workshops on the process and business of being a creative. Whenever I do that, once the folks paying me have received what they paid me for, I take that workshop or lesson and make it a free to consume resource on my site. The actual powerpoints I use, youtube videos, blog posts, they all form a guide geared towards folks who want to follow in my footsteps, or forge their own path.

And as I have received endless amounts of help from authors further along the path from me, I try to pay that help forward. Thus all these resources are free.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

How did I build my audience on social media? Poorly, and in fits and starts! I wasted a lot of years on social media before I really got my sea legs under me, but I did learn a couple of key things:

1. It is better to not have a social media account than to have one you are not using. If you have an account on every social media platform out there, but only actively use one or two, then folks who find you on the other social media platforms will likely assume you have quit. So starting out pick the one social media you are most comfortable with, and get consistent about posting there. Only then add a second, third, etc.

2. Stick to what you know. I have good success on Reddit as one of my social medias. But it is very tricky to use, so I rarely recommend folks use it unless they are already an active Reddit user. Conversely, I was never any good at using Tumblr, and I wasted a good bit of time there before I realized I was better off spending my energy elsewhere.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.talesbybob.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talesbybob
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/talesbybob
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@talesbybob
• Other: https://linktr.ee/Talesbybob