We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sheena Howard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sheena below.

Alright, Sheena thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you 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?

I have made a yearly profit (not just revenue) of over 6-figures from my writing business alone. This has given me the option to leave my day job if I wanted to. In addition, my academic branding company has made revenue of over 55k a year.

In terms of the journey, the first step was changing the way I valued money as well as the way I valued my talents. Growing up, I took the traditional path of getting educated and getting a good job. My first full-time job didn’t make me rich, but as a single person living in the suburbs of Maryland, $40,000 was more than enough. From there, my salary grew to 6-figures, so I never really thought about money. For me, money was just something you had if you worked and made the right choices. That was until I went through a costly divorce, and ALL of my bank accounts were drained to ZERO. I had to get financial help from my mother. I had nothing financially after going through this terrible crisis. At the same time, I had a little boy who depended on me to make it through this. That is when I started to get upset that I hadn’t saved, invested, and monetized my abilities all of those prior years. I needed to start respecting money and valuing my talents if I wanted to build my bank accounts back up and create a financially secure future for my family. This was the pivotal moment I got serious about turning my passion into profit. As a writer, I’d premier films and writing projects out of my own pocket. I’d charge clients little to nothing. I’d do speaking engagements that actually cost me money to get there. The crisis experience taught me that I had to value myself enough to charge appropriately to get free and afford the life I wanted to create for myself and my family.

From there, I started to write for clients who had more money, which meant I started writing books for CEOs and celebrities. That allowed me to charge a minimum of $50,000 for a book project. In addition, the comic book project prices went up, as well as the speaking engagement rates. The rates were commensurate with my experience, and increasing those rates had the additional effect of allowing me to feel better about the work I was doing because I no longer felt I was being taken advantage of due to the cheap rates I was previously doing things for.

Some of the ancillary things I had to do during this process were learn sales and the psychology of sales. I had to teach myself things like sales funnels and hire coaches to teach me how to move from being an academic to an entrepreneur.

I think I could have sped up the process by truly understanding sooner the value of money and what I have to offer the world. In addition, I could have sped up the process by not buying into the “starving artist” trope that makes creatives feel like they should be giving their art away for little to no cost. I had to unlearn a lot of things and re-learn other things.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have a PhD in Intercultural and Rhetorical Communication from Howard University. I did my dissertation on comics in 2010 when it wasn’t cool to do so. From there I published a book called Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation. That book make me the first Black woman to win an Eisner award at San Diego Comic-Con. An Eisner is considered the ‘Oscars of Comics’.

I have published comic book stories for both Marvel (Illusion of Fairness, 2023) and DC (Fresh Air in Philly, 2021, and others) comics. I have written a graphic novel and stage play for DMC (from RUN-DMC), published with Bloomsbury (Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation, 2014), Chicago Review Press (Encyclopedia of Black Comics, 2017), BenBella Press (Why Wakanda Matters, 2021), and more. In addition, my work has received numerous book awards, including an American Library Association’s Outstanding Reference Sourcebook award and more.

My books have been featured in Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more. I was also the subject of an Emmy-nominated episode of State of the Arts. In addition to writing my own books, I ghostwrite for celebrities, CEOs, and social impact companies that seek to empower, inspire, and motivate underestimated populations.

I run an academic branding company that teaches people with PhDs how to increase their visibility, authority, and income without the expense of a publicist. This company gives me great pride because creating it required me to learn business skills I did not previously have. I am most proud of the journey and lessons my academic branding company taught me as an entrepreneur and person.

The main thing my fans should know about me is that I am multi-talented, and I haven’t given up on any of my talents. I use all of my talents in service of a singular mission, vision, and purpose. They all work together to bring the life I want to live into fruition.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I wanted to write a comic for Marvel, I didn’t wait to get picked. I didn’t just do good work and hope that they would find me. When I had built up a body of work, I paid someone on Fiverr.com to find the email address of the editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics. I got the email address of that person as well as the #2 in charge, and I sent them an email. I told them who I was and that I wanted to write for them. They didn’t respond, but I didn’t fret. I simply kept creating great work. A year later, an editor reached out to me from Marvel and asked me to write a story for Marvel’s Wakanda Forever #1. I wrote the story and can now say I have written for Marvel comics. My story is called “The Illusion of Fairness”. After publishing with Marvel, I found the editor-in-chief on Instagram, and I wrote to him to say thank you. He responded, telling me that he was sorry it took so long and that he’d hoped I would write more for them. That said to me that he did get my email and that my email paid off, even if I had to wait a while.

Create good work, shoot your shot, but don’t wait to be picked is the moral of the story.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I were not so skeptical of paying coaches early in thmye entrepreneurship journey. There are bad ones out there, including bad programs that are costly; however, I found a business coach and program that has been pivotal to my success. I wish I had known earlier how to weed out the programs and coaches that don’t work. Here is what I’d suggest:

1) Follow the coach and program creators for a while before purchasing. See what they are about and take note of their successes.

2) Never hire a coach if they haven’t achieved the thing you are trying to achieve.

3) Programs and coaches that are referred to you are pivotal. I found my business coach because a previous customer told me they got results and actually showed me the results. This is the best way to know a program or coach is legit. If you have to, find someone who has taken the program or hired the coach and set up a call with them to discuss what they learned.

4) Finally, make sure the coach can actually teach. Just because someone has what you want, it doesn’t mean they can actually teach it and replicate the result for others.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://drsheenahoward.com/
• Instagram: @drsheenahoward
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsheenahoward/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrSheenaHoward
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@drsheenahoward
• Other: Poweryourresearch.com