Kickstart Your Week
Kickstart Your Week is the weekly podcast for small business owners and marketers who want practical momentum, not just motivation.
Hosted by the team at Kickstart Collective, a marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC, this short-form show delivers honest conversations, smart marketing insights, and real-world business strategies to help you move your business forward every single week.
From local SEO and messaging that actually resonates… to consistency over intensity, mindset shifts, and knowing when to pivot, we break down the habits and decisions that help businesses grow sustainably.
Each episode is designed to be actionable, conversational, and easy to implement because building a business doesn’t require hustle culture. It requires clarity, consistency, and the courage to take the next right step.
Whether you’re refining your marketing, resetting your goals, or navigating growth, Kickstart Your Week will help you focus on what matters and build momentum that lasts.
New episodes drop weekly.
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Kickstart Your Week
EP19 - Laurel Senick author of Foam: Navigating the World of Self Publishing and the Business of Writing
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It's not every day we get to talk about writing, surfing, and the journey of self publishing a book. But today, we're doing just that with the multi-talented author, Laurel Senick.
With her first novel 'Foam' and her upcoming novel 'Luminescent', Laurel takes us on her journey from the writing desk to self publishing. She shares the challenges of wearing multiple hats as a writer, marketer, and businesswoman - and how she manages to balance them all.
Dare to dream about your own writing career or creative passions as we further explore Laurel's creative process, her writing community, and surf retreats in Puerto Rico.
Laurel shares her experience navigating the stormy seas of publishing, taking the naysayers opinions with a grain of salt, and powering through obstacles. Laurel's story is not just about publishing a book, it's about believing in her projects and staying focused. You won't want to miss this one!
Check out Laurel's book 'Foam' on Amazon!
Connect with Laurel:
laurelsenick.com
www.instagram.com/laurelsenick/
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Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co
Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies.
Get more from Kickstart Your Week!
Watch on YouTube
Follow on Instagram
Subscribe to our email list
//
Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co
Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies.
Author's Journey
Speaker 1Welcome to the Two Can Talks podcast brought to you by Kickstart Collective. Join us as we talk to local Wilmington business owners about what has led to their successes, challenges and more. No question is off limits as we bounce from topic to topic.
Speaker 2And this podcast is brought to you by Kickstart Studios. Kickstart Studios is Wilmington's newest video podcast studio, equipped with multiple camera angles and an in-house producer. Creating a high quality video podcast has never been easier. Don't let the tech and gear learning curve hold you back from jumping into podcasting or creating video content any longer. Our team takes care of it all for you, so you can focus on the message you want to share. You simply show up record and receive the final product. No more wasting time setting it up and breaking down the gear, setting up lights or doing sound checks on your own. Our in-house producer will have everything set up and ready to go for you. Check us out at Kickstart Studios.
Speaker 1Welcome to Two Can Talks. We are so excited to have you on here talking about being an author and publishing a book and we'll dive into like the business marketing side of that, which will be fun. But if you want to introduce yourself and your book and then how you kind of got into being an author and that process, we can start there and then we'll dive into our lovely game. Cool, I can't wait to play the game. It's going to be fun.
Speaker 3Well, I'm Laurel Sinek and I've been in Wilmington for like forever and I learned to surf about two decades ago, thanks. And once I learned to surf, it seemed to be this font of never ending creativity for me. So I started. I used to work in film, so that was kind of the first thing creative that I did with out of surfing was create a little short documentary about the people that I surfed with. But right in that early time I went looking because I love to read for a book that had surfing in it. And I read some of the books and I was like you know, I really want one that has that female protagonist that surfs. And I just started looking and looking and I was like really, there's not one.
Speaker 1It doesn't exist and it didn't exist.
Speaker 3And while there was, uh, bethany Hamilton has the little middle grade books and I read those, but I was desperate yeah, no, um, and they were cute, but um, yeah. So when I started writing 10 years ago um, nonfiction, and then started writing, playing with fiction of the woman who is the, was my mentor really writing? It was like you're so creative, you should try fiction. And then I was like I know what I want to write, I want to write what I wanted to read. So that's what I did. That's awesome, yeah.
Speaker 1I mean, I feel obviously we're talking in this case about writing, but I feel like that's from a business perspective. There was a gaping large need in the market and you're like. I can do it, yes.
Speaker 3Well, I mean, actually, I was like I wasn't sure if I would be able to try to do this.
Speaker 1I didn't do it, you did do it, you did it I did finish it, but it did take eight years. Yeah, hey, that's okay. Good things take time. I know I was thinking about it because obviously we've known each other for a long time, and I remember when you were talking about, like I think I'm going to start writing a book, and then I was like was this, that book? This?
Speaker 3is that book?
Speaker 1I didn't know if that was when you had started. Then you switched. That's cool.
Speaker 3I did start it and then worked on it probably five years and then put it on the shelf, because if you read a sentence a hundred times, you're done with it. You can't read it objectively so, and it gave me a chance to work on book number two Cool. And then I was able to come back months and months later to look at this and go. You know what I can make this work? Yeah, we're going to make this happen.
Speaker 1And it's called foam, by the way. Oh, yes, foam, it is on Amazon. We have a question, not for you, but we do have a question in the toucan for some of our guests with business owners. Read bad reviews kind of like celebrities read mean tweets. So I did look on Amazon as I was prepping for this, to see if you had any bad reviews and you didn't. So kind of a bummer for our podcast, but good news for you.
Speaker 3Well, I will say, on good reads, there is another one that I should look for. Not a bad review, but there's a three or two, but they didn't say anything. Oh no, and it's like. Well, it means some constructive. Yeah, tell me what. Can my next book be better? I want it to be better.
Speaker 1I'll just doc my rating if you're not going to actually give me feedback.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly Whatever Meh there, but it doesn't matter. I'm joking.
Speaker 1Um, cool. So for those of you who have not watched this podcast, um, basically, or listened to it, I would say watching is more fun. But if you haven't listened to and done, um, what we do is we have this board with the classic coin drop game, so we give our guests these tokens. You can drop it anywhere on the board. If it lands in a one, it's our business questions. If it lands on a two, it is our two. Can Um, those are more personal fun questions. Sometimes we call it the party. Can Um, there's lots of options.
Speaker 1Party can to can Two can yes, has too many names. Um, if you drop it and it flies off the board, it's okay.
Speaker 3We just do it again.
Speaker 1Um, we did make a rule. If it gets every now and again it gets like stuck on a peg. If that happens, then you get to ask me a question. If you're like, I don't know to ask you, we do have a stack of cards back there. You can from the worst. There's self-deck no um, look what above it.
Speaker 2Oh, okay, yes.
Speaker 1The cuter one you can pull from this. I think there are some more self-questions in there, but um yeah, so that's how it goes. So we're going to grab a coin.
Speaker 3Let's do this.
Speaker 1See what happens.
Speaker 3That's exactly what you were talking about, don't worry, it happens.
Speaker 1Let me try. Happens to the best of them, ooh One million dollars. You won $1. All right, um, we're diving right in. So what surprised you most about the business side of writing and publishing a book?
Speaker 3Hmm, that's a good one. What surprised me the most? Um, well, I was surprised when I started researching um, what sales are expected, or what's the norm for sales and publishing. And if you are publishing independently, the average is less than 250 books sold for the life of that book. Oh, wow, yeah, that's pretty dire straight.
Speaker 1Yeah For yeah for the amount of time and then that you've put into it yeah. Yeah. So, what's like the average? Is it like 15 to like $25? Like what's the average?
Speaker 3Uh, the amount that the book sells for, um, I don't know, they didn't. That wasn't part of. I mean, I'm sure that's in the statistics but I don't know what the average book cost is. But to me I just thought, oh, okay, well then I just have to beat that number, yeah, then I'm in the top like 5%, yeah, and but then in the first month I beat that number. So then I was like, okay, most traditionally published authors, they sell maybe um a thousand of that book before in the life of that book. Yeah, so that's the average, okay, so my goal was a thousand by Christmas, yeah, and I'm I'm working up to 900 now.
Speaker 1So yeah, that's great. I feel like people. That's a great Christmas.
Speaker 3That's a great Christmas gift. That's right, she showed the show, yeah.
Speaker 1Great Christmas gift. Let's get her to a thousand by Christmas.
Speaker 3It's called thumb and it's got a little surfer girl on it.
Balancing Writing and Marketing in Business
Speaker 1Well, that's cool. So you went the like independent route I did Cool Um and you've already.
Speaker 3yeah, I mean, that's awesome.
Speaker 1You're almost. Yeah, I'm almost there.
Speaker 3Yeah, I'm stoked, and so, uh, took off the writing hat and put on the marketing hat, because it's really hard to do that creative slog through writing and be marketing at the same time. Yeah, I don't know how you do it, because you do both.
Speaker 1Yes, I um, yeah, I think, from like our perspective, it's having like I have to. Actually I love marketing, I got into this because I love marketing, but then the hat that I have to put on is like, oh, I have to run a business, mm, hmm, and do payroll and accounting and bookkeeping, which eventually we have outsourced some of our accounting, but you know. So, yeah, it's hard to like. I have to like segment my days on, like this day I'm going to focus on this, or I'm going to focus on like start marketing in this day.
Speaker 1I'm going to focus on like client work, which is still marketing, but it's different.
Speaker 3So you're, you kind of put the marketing part in the creative box more than than the business side of marketing, where I'm kind of like lumping that all together. But now that you say that maybe that's something that I could segment out a little bit yeah, do a little bit of both during my creative time so I've just kind of imagined myself like okay, we're stuck in the marketing mode and I'm doing this till Christmas, and then I'm done. Yeah, no, I feel like you, you had definite.
Speaker 1I mean even from like the copywriting and like all that on the creative marketing side. I feel like you were great at that because you liked to write.
Speaker 3Well, yeah, so some of that part is fun, but it's definitely it's more purposeful. Well, no, it's just purposeful in a different way, yeah, first, yeah, learn something every day.
Speaker 1That's true. Here we go.
Speaker 3Cool, all right, here you go.
Speaker 2Oh.
Speaker 3I'll get to doing this. Yes, take two.
Speaker 1Take two, don't miss. All right, shake them up. So we do have some question like standard questions and we have some questions that are specific to you. We'll see this is a standard, standard question what is the best business advice you've received? So maybe in relating Well, I guess, business or related to writing. Writing.
Speaker 3Okay, well, related to writing, of course, there's the kill your darlings, which means those little bits of writing that you love, you slaved over. They're wonderful. They're wonderful, but do they serve the story and the reader?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3And so those were the things that got cut right at the end, because you're like hold on to them yeah.
Speaker 1I'll get you off the blanket.
Speaker 3And then you just that's a good one.
Speaker 1Yeah, I like that. That also applies to marketing. Marketing. Gosh. So many life lessons, no, sonny. We were talking about, like, creating marketing content for your audience, and just because you think it's good doesn't mean that's what they need, that's right. Or even if it is good, it is what they need. Like, how do you position that to where they connect with it?
Speaker 3There you go, and it's always kind of, I guess, trial and error to some degree.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's very true, great advice.
Speaker 3Okay, sure, I feel like I can't get them way over there, but I'm gonna reach way over, I'm gonna be all ones.
Speaker 1You're all business today, my friend.
Speaker 3Business in the front, party in the back.
Speaker 1Yes. What has been the most successful marketing strategy for building traction for foam?
Speaker 3Because I mean you've already succeeded.
Speaker 1You've already beat the record or the benchmark.
Speaker 3Yes, and definitely PR has been huge. Rightful Beach Magazine, wct, my hometown newspaper, intracostal magazine, just came out with a little article. So those I mean. I keep thinking how can I reach more people? Because, you know, at first I was really focusing on my surfer girls. And then I have a guy paddle around the pier to me, young guy, and go oh, I just loved your book. I went skiing with my family but I couldn't put your book down.
Speaker 2And I was like what so?
Speaker 3and then some ladies that aren't surfers and older in a book club all loved it, you know, and I'm just like oh. So how do I get it out there? How do I reach more people and I feel like that's probably one of the biggest keys Some of those different PR channels, anywhere, that's gonna reach more people than I can reach.
Speaker 1Yeah, for sure, that's awesome.
Speaker 3All right, you do one for me you want me to drop it?
Speaker 1Yeah, I'll drop it on the side, yeah, I want that side. Watch me get stuck, and then I have to answer a question Still business, still business, still business.
Speaker 3I like talking about business. Yeah, I think that's why we're here, yeah that's why we're here.
Speaker 1How did you get into writing? So we kind of touched on that at the beginning.
Speaker 3but yeah, well, I will share that. My entry really into writing was I, don, and I had had a miscarriage, and my friend called me like a couple of weeks into that and just said, hey, I heard about this writers group that's starting in Wilmington and I just knew in that moment. Just I mean, what time is it? Where are we meeting? I'm coming. And I just knew writing would be helpful, and I've always journaled or whatever, since I was a little girl. I have an old diary in my bookcase. That's awesome.
Speaker 2But, yeah.
Speaker 3So that was kind of like you never know what things will push you into your next journey, I guess, and that was something that helped me deal with all the feelings that I was having at the time and all the emotions, and so that's why I started writing nonfiction and write about marriage, surfing, everything, yeah. But yeah, that's how it started. That's cool.
Speaker 1Are you still in some sort of writer's community? Yes, yes, I'm still in.
Speaker 3Word Weavers International, which is a Christian writers group that meets monthly all over and they have chapters all over the world. And then that was my main one, but there was another one that met and we're not meeting right now, but still, yeah, that's cool. You have to have those other people with you, because writing is a lonely process, so you need encouragement for that. Encouragement for sure. Cool, that's awesome, all right. All right, see what happens Last one.
Speaker 1We need to drop a few extra. We can Woo yes, partay, all right, let's see. Let's hope it's a good one or not. They're all good, but some of them are better than others, if you do say so yourself, If I do since I wrote them, I can say some Okay, what is your favorite local go-to place? So this can be food, fun, whatever hanging out.
Speaker 3Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1Greater. You can list a few. I won't limit you, Okay, oh, yay.
Speaker 3Okay, favorite place? Well, the beach, obviously, is number one, and so I love going to Sunday's coffee shop. There's no better big old Asahi bowl than that place. I mean they put it's loaded Nice and I love adapt. I love everything at the beach, but Don and I probably we love going out to dinner has to be within biking distance, cause we have the tandem and our new place is Kipos.
Speaker 1Oh, it's so good and so pretty, y'all gonna bike to there.
Speaker 3Yes, you look so cool. It's nice that I don't have to steer or pay attention.
Speaker 1I just have to pedal. I guess you can just hop.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's not too bad. We go through Eaton Elementary, the park, and then we have that one little stretch on Gordon, then behind the old grocery store and then on the main path.
Speaker 1That's not bad. Yeah, it's so good. No-transcript Last year for like work Christmas party, it's so good. And then I tried we were gonna go.
Speaker 3That's a nice work. Christmas party. Well, we got a small team so. I wanna join your team.
Speaker 1Yeah, but yeah so good. And then me and Luke were gonna go one time on a date night, but it was like last minute and I was like nope, there's nothing open.
Speaker 3I'm gonna plan ahead, I'm gonna book that reservation ahead of time. Yeah, they are busy, yeah, and but they, you know, they fillet the fish right in front of you, yeah, so cool, awesome.
Speaker 1Well, let's, let's see what we're at, let's do yeah, let's do like one or two more, and then we can wrap it from there. All right, Dun, dun, dun, choo, choo, choo, choo choo.
Speaker 3Choo choo, Choo choo. Oh yeah, baby yeah, so I can pick from either. You can pick a can.
Speaker 1You can ask me just something in your brain. You can pick one of those random random card questions.
Speaker 3I'm gonna pick from the can, okay.
Speaker 1Hopefully it's not about writing, because I won't have an answer.
Speaker 3You do write all the time, okay, ooh.
Speaker 1Is this one for you? Yeah, you can pick a different one. You can save that one. Okay, that one looks like it might be one for you too. Holly, sorry, I can tell by the way they're cut.
Speaker 3Oh well, it's nice to know that I had specific ones made for me. Okay, if you could wave a magic wand and change anything, what would you change about Wilmington?
Speaker 1Today, today, right now. This is actually a good one. I haven't had to answer this one before.
Speaker 2And again.
Speaker 1I did write these, but a lot of them I didn't really think through me, Sorry.
Speaker 3Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do do. Just gonna waste some time on this podcast. Do, do, do, do, do, do do.
Speaker 1I might borrow from Luke's answer. Okay, so his answer? He was like completely, like he was putting the mountains, he was getting Puerto Rico waves, like he literally changed the entire landscape. I think I would get more outdoorsy activities other than the beach.
Speaker 1Because I love the beach. Yes, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's nice Like we went to the mountains and we just did one random hike. There was some elevation, it was cool and crisp outside and it was great and I was like this would be fun to do, like in Wilmington. But I'm not gonna go. You can't go walk around, like how many times can you walk around Fort Fisher? That's right, and walk out that.
Speaker 3Should I allow me to stay.
Speaker 1Do a big freaking sand dune, sugar mountain or sugar whatever. Whatever I'm like that has like giant lump of sand and it hurt, like it makes my freaking chins hurt. Walking up sand like that, Maybe like some, maybe some ground.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Anyways. If you love the mound of sand. That's great. Not for me. I love the beach, but yeah, just like other.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I just put us one like North Carolina Mountain.
Speaker 3Yes, right outside of town, that'd be nice. Yeah, yeah, okay, I would add a wave pool.
Speaker 1Like right outside of town? Okay, that'd be fun, yeah, yeah. Our five year old asked like the other day he's like you ever surfed in a pool. We're like I'm not yet you technically can. But yeah, okay, that's where you have, okay.
Speaker 3All right, cool, here we go.
Speaker 1Oh, no, hey oh, another personal, let's see, you might already know what this question is.
Speaker 3I grabbed it, didn't pay a lot of attention to it.
Speaker 1Oh, this will be a fun one. What is your spiciest opinion that most people disagree with?
Speaker 3Okay, I did hear you ask this question and I was on my way here driving and I immediately thought of I love Nacho Libre, the middle, oh, okay, and a lot of people, don't?
Speaker 1That's funny. That's a good one. I feel like I don't remember the specifics of it because I was these are the orphans cheaps.
Speaker 3When I met Don, I was right on a Nacho Libre high, Probably had watched it a couple of times and I was quoting, and Don said he watched that movie and had serious doubts about our relationship.
Speaker 1Oh no, I'm glad he gave you another chance?
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly that's so funny.
Speaker 1Yeah, I feel like that's one of those like it was almost a classic in that like timeframe of like funny movies, I think, so I love it, that's so funny. I didn't know where you're knowing. I just didn't know where you're going to go with that one. I like that I like that direction.
Speaker 3So nobody said that one yet, no one.
Speaker 1Yes, yeah, most people either disagree with it or don't think about it. That's really funny, cool. Well, I think we can head to our closing question. So what can people expect from you next?
Speaker 3Well, if they read phone, at the end there is a link to book number two. Okay, and like I said in there, somewhere while I was writing this I started book number two. I've really written it. I don't have the ending yet, yeah, and it's not edited yet, which is the the burden of the whole thing. But it's called luminescent and it's a minor character in here that has the lead role.
Speaker 1I love when books do that. Yeah, me too. You get to like see a whole different. Is it okay without giving too much? Is it like the same, like timeframe of what's happening, or is it a separate?
Speaker 3It's a separate time frame because it's marked by an event. Okay yeah, but it does take place in Puerto Rico again.
Speaker 1Hey, yeah.
Speaker 3Kill.
Speaker 1Well, Puerto Rico Shout out Puerto Rico. I'll tell you after the podcast.
Speaker 3This is not something she feels comfortable sharing with you, and you and you.
Speaker 1Yes, I'll tell you afterwards. That's cool. I love that. Do you have? I guess, since you have to still get through the editing process, do you have like a target date, or is it?
Speaker 3Well, I released this on the first day of summer, which was so fun because it is kind of a be-tweet.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3And, of course, ocean centric. And so the book number two, I'm praying will be done for the first day of summer in 2024. That's awesome, yeah, so beyond the lookout. But right now foam is out there. It makes a good Christmas gift and anybody that loves adventure, surfing free, diving through underwater caves and yeah, so pick it up.
Speaker 1Awesome. What is the best way for people to follow you for set?
Speaker 3updates or get in touch with you.
Speaker 1Obviously, it's available on Amazon locally. You have it in handful of places, right?
Speaker 3Yes, so if they want the book, okay, let's write this up into two questions.
Speaker 1One if they want the book, what's the best way to get it?
Speaker 3Okay, if you're in the Wilmington area, they're at Sunday Surf City, surf Shop, roberts Grocery, pomegranate Books, barnes Noble, they're all those places Awesome. And then if you can't get to Wilmington, then it's definitely Barnes Noble and Amazon, of course. Please leave a review. That's great, and if you don't like it, that's fine, just tell me why.
Speaker 1Yeah, don't just leave a star give some people. Or you know, what we like to tell people here in the marketing world is if you have helpful feedback, yes, Just message it. Don't ruin. If, unless it's like tragic, don't mess someone's rating up with your star. Like talk to them and give them a chance.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Have a conversation and then if they suck on that front, then go ahead and leave your star review.
Speaker 3but yes, oh, that's nice, you get an extra little yeah give a little mention. Give them my meant to communicate. Yeah, I like that Crazy communication's crazy.
Speaker 1Cool. And then if they want to Get up with me, get up with you, follow you all that good stuff. How do they do that?
Speaker 3Yes, so loralsyniccom is my website, or you can go to foam the novel and it'll take you to my website, and then I do also writing retreats and surf retreats in Puerto Rico, puerto Rico. Yeah, so you can come to my website by the book or check out one of the retreats and follow me there. Of course, I'm on Instagram, loralsynic Facebook, instagram perfect that's it, love it.
Speaker 1And then, what is one final thought you would want to leave our listeners with. It can be from the business perspective, writing perspective, life perspective, whichever, wherever you feel like to go.
Speaker 3Well, I would just say I ran into a lot of naysayers. The Christian publishing world's like oh, your main character does drugs. No, no, no, no, we can't have you. And traditional publishing thought that because this was international, it didn't just stay in the US, that that was harder to make sales with, which may be true, I don't know. They didn't think that Ocean was a universal enough theme to be a good selling book, and so don't go with the naysayers.
Speaker 2If you believe in it and you know you wanted it.
Speaker 3I mean go for it.
Speaker 1You can make it happen. Yeah, you can figure it out. Believe in it, that's so interesting the ocean is not universal.
Speaker 3Oh, okay.
Speaker 1Cool, Maybe we're biased to the ocean, but yeah, I mean, yeah, think about it If you're like. Oh well, if you would have listened to that, like wouldn't have made that wouldn't have spent eight years on this book. Yeah, you wouldn't be here with your book.
Speaker 3And don't quit, because I mean just because it takes a long time doesn't mean it's not meant to be, that's yeah, that's true, cool, well, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2This was fun.
Speaker 1Got another catch up Again locally. Lots of places online you guys can buy this book.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, and you can listen to our podcast. Yes, that actually kickstarter got us kickstarted. Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1Yeah, that was back before. Yeah, when we had like the intern program. Alyssa who she did the logo. That's right. Post session podcast yes, and that is on all the podcast platforms Awesome, Thank you Cool thanks for having me, of course. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of 2KandTalks brought to you by Kickstart Collective. If you loved this episode, be sure to subscribe wherever you watch podcast and follow Kickstart Collective on Instagram at Kickstart Collective.