Jonathan Yanez quit his job, cashed in his 401k, and burned every safety net he had — all before he told his wife. The first month of self-publishing, he made thirty cents. Eight years later, he runs a full-time publishing business with his wife, is fielding calls from the screenwriter behind Dune and Doctor Strange, and hasn't touched alcohol since the same year he walked away from his day job.

Jonathan Yanez is the author of the sci-fi Forsaken Mercenary and Gateway to the Galaxy series, and the nonfiction motivational book Get It Done: Hard-Hitting Motivation for Authors. He's also a former full-time, now part-time, personal trainer — a background he draws on constantly when talking about discipline, routine, and physical health as a writer's foundation.

We get into his actual daily schedule (4,000 words a day, six days a week, in 20–30 minute sprints before 8 a.m.), the blunt story of quitting his job without warning his wife, and how he approaches setbacks in his current push into foreign publishing, video games, and film — including a cold rejection that turned into a meeting six months later once he'd built momentum. We also talk about sobriety, self-belief, and why he thinks most authors box themselves out of opportunities they've never actually tried to pursue.

🎙️ What we get into:

• His actual writing routine: 5 a.m. starts, 4,000 words a day, 20–30 minute sprints, six days a week
• Why he quit his job and cashed in his 401k without telling his wife first
• How the first month of self-publishing brought in thirty cents — and what it grew into over eight years
• Why he believes "fail early, fail often, fail forward" applies just as much to lifting weights as it does to drafting a novel
• The cold pitch that got rejected, then turned into a meeting six months later once the project gained visible momentum
• Why he thinks writers are athletes, and how skipping exercise directly affects his creative output
• How he built connections in foreign publishing, video games, and film through cold outreach and persistence
• Getting sober the same year he left his day job, and how that shift changed his entire drive
• Why he writes down five yearly goals, then deliberately doesn't look at them again until year's end
• His honest take on why some mentors discourage ambition — because your growth reminds them of where they stopped

Links & Resources:

• Jonathan Yanez: https://jonathanyanez.com

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📚 About Jonathan Yanez

Jonathan Yanez is an author of sci-fi and fantasy fiction. He's the creative mind behind the Forsaken Mercenary series and the Gateway to the Galaxy series. He's also the author of the nonfiction book Get It Done: Hard-Hitting Motivation for Authors. Beyond writing, Jonathan is a former personal trainer, a part-time model, and an all-round inspiring guy.

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A Big Five editor once called Helen Scheuerer to say she loved her manuscript and wanted to pass it up the chain — but it would take four to eight weeks just to hear back. Helen was already close to self-publishing. She said thank you, and walked away. That single moment of arithmetic — weighing months of waiting against the creative control she already had — is the clearest snapshot of a mindset shift that took her from a traditionally-trained literary fiction writer to a full-time, methodical, bestselling indie fantasy author.

Helen Scheuerer is the YA fantasy author of the bestselling Oremere Chronicles and Curse of the Siren Queen series. Her work has been praised for its strong, flawed female characters and action-packed plots. She holds a Bachelor of Creative Writing and a Masters of Publishing, and now writes full-time from central Otago, New Zealand.

We get into how a frustrating small-press deal for a literary fiction manuscript she wrote to please academic gatekeepers pushed her toward NaNoWriMo and, eventually, indie fantasy. We talk through the granular, 400-email outreach campaign that helped launch her debut, Heart of Mist, to breakout success in 2017 — and the very different, much slower ramp-up she experienced launching a second series in the same universe. We also dig into her outlining process, her word-count tracking, and how she structures a writing day around mornings, 30-minute sprints, and deliberately staying off email until the words are down.

🎙️ What we get into:

• Why she walked away from a Big Five offer over an eight-week response window
• How a frustrating small-press deal for her literary fiction manuscript pushed her to start writing fantasy for fun instead
• The 400-email, reverse-engineered book blogger outreach campaign that helped launch Heart of Mist
• Why a sequel series set in the same world as her breakout hit still had to build momentum from scratch
• How switching from a loose outline to a chapter-by-chapter, scene-by-scene structure solved recurring plot problems
• Her actual morning writing routine: tea, 30-minute sprints, and outline on one screen, manuscript on the other
• Why she tracks word count in a basic spreadsheet to identify her most productive hours
• The financial and emotional risk of continuing a series that launched softer than expected
• Why she believes indie publishing rarely comes up in university creative writing or publishing programs, despite how directly relevant it is
• How living with a partner (versus living alone) changed her ability to switch off from work

Links & Resources:

Helen Scheuerer: https://helenscheuerer.com/

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🎧 Listen on your favourite app: https://pod.link/1829723468

🖥️ Find out more: https://danielwillcocks.com/thewriterschair

📚 About Helen Scheuerer

Helen Scheuerer is the Sunday Times bestselling author best known for her romantasy series, The Legends of Thezmarr and The Ashes of Thezmarr. Her work has been highly praised for its strong, flawed female characters and its action-packed plots. She also publishes advice for authors with her nonfiction series, Books For Career Authors.

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Rachael Herron's editor once gave her a note that's stuck with her ever since: "less feely, more stabby." She'd written a thriller with too much heart in it, and had to go back through and strip warmth out in favour of terror. It's a small, funny detail — but it points at something bigger this episode digs into: the tension between writing what sells and writing what you actually love, and what happens to a career when you finally stop chasing the market.

Rachael Herron is the international and USA Today bestselling author of more than two dozen books spanning fantasy, thrillers (written as R.H. Herron), mainstream fiction, romance, memoir, and nonfiction about writing. She holds an MFA from Mills College and has taught writing extension workshops at UC Berkeley and Stanford. A dual Kiwi-American citizen, she now lives in Wellington, New Zealand, five years after relocating from the US with her wife during the pandemic.

We get into the fantasy novel she wrote purely for herself — with no market strategy at all — that became her first USA Today bestseller, why she now makes more money from an unpromoted self-published backlist than from actively marketed new releases, and why she believes chasing sales math ("if I can write this much in two hours...") is a trap that destroys writers. We also talk candidly about jealousy versus insecurity among peers, why she hates every promotional email she's ever sent, and how running her podcast for years has quietly become the thing that keeps her from ever fully quitting writing.

🎙️ What we get into:

• Why she wrote a fantasy novel with zero market strategy — and how it became her first USA Today bestseller
• The "less feely, more stabby" editorial note that forced her to rewrite the emotional register of a thriller
• Why she believes she makes more money self-publishing an unpromoted backlist than actively marketing new trad-published books
• Her honest breakdown of writing in "seasons" rather than a fixed daily routine
• Why doing the math on your writing speed ("if I can do this in two hours...") is dangerous and misleading
• The real difference between jealousy and insecurity when a student's book outperforms your own
• Why she believes readers follow an author's voice across genres more readily than most writers assume
• How she balances teaching, coaching, and writing without letting one cannibalize the others
• Why she still hates every promotional email she sends — and buries the ask in the P.S. to make it feel less pushy
• What she'd do differently if she woke up tomorrow with no backlist and no name recognition: write in one series, in one genre, long enough for readers to expect the next book

Links & Resources:

• Horror Halloween Promotion: https://devilsrockbooks.com/partners
• Rachael Herron: https://rachaelherron.com
• Rachael Herron's writer email list: https://rachaelherron.com/write

Subscribe to The Writer's Chair

If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow writer.

📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willcocksauthor

🎧 Listen on your favourite app: https://pod.link/1829723468

🖥️ Find out more: https://danielwillcocks.com/thewriterschair

📚 About Rachael Herron

Rachael Herron is the international and USA Today bestselling author of more than two dozen books, including fantasy, thrillers (under R.H. Herron), mainstream fiction, romance, memoir, and nonfiction about writing. She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, Oakland, and she’s taught writing extension workshops at both UC Berkeley and Stanford. A dual New Zealand and American citizen, she lives in Wellington, New Zealand with her banjo-playing wife and brick-eating dog.

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