Hi, my name is Elisa Parhad.
I'm a writer and author, and I have two boys Marsais and Caveh.
Growing up, my family was very frugal.
I think that the upbringing of my parents contributed to kind of a DIY mindset
of learning how to do something myself, instead of paying others to do it.
When I had my first kid, I was 32 years old.
So my husband's career came to a point where he needed to be in Hollywood.
And so we moved to Los Angeles and I got a job right away, and it was
a really difficult work environment.
And I needed a change.
I quit around the time I found out I was pregnant.
I knew that the first few years of having a baby was going to be kind of
all encompassing, but I also wanted to do something that I was completely in
charge of where I could work on something.
When I was ready.
And so I took that time to start a publishing company.
I did a book on Southern California.
And so how I used my early motherhood was I got to spend time
with my baby and I would go and take the photographs for the book.
I would like time it, so he would fall asleep in the car and we would arrive
somewhere and I do the pictures or research or whatever I needed to do.
I sell my books.
I publish them.
And They don't make a huge amount of my revenue, but that income
pays for any computer upgrades, camera, upgrades, and 401k.
What I kind of bring to the table to the family is not just the money that I bring
in, but the money that I'm able to save.
So, for example, when we travel, we rent our house out on Airbnb and
that pays for often our hotels or our gas money, or our restaurants.
If my husband has a really, really, really crazy busy period as do I.
I'm going to go get the oil changed by somebody else.
If we have really open schedules, we're going to change our own oil.
I think one of the ways that I live my life is I really, really, really
value time for creative projects and spending time, how I want to spend it.
I always said art before dishes.
I am going to do my writing and do the projects that are going to make money.
There's no way you will ever find me not working on creative
projects when I have time.
I started realizing that books just do not make a lot of money.
So I stepped away from books.
When I had my second son in 2013, I worked making really, really
good money doing market research.
I started by going to a conference.
And so I went to actually travel writing conferences, thinking I was
going to be hiring writers for my publishing company and realizing,
wait, I have all this content.
I make anywhere between a thousand to 3000 a month with just freelance.
Right.
I think there were many, many years where I was making like a thousand
dollars a month from the book.
I have never, ever taken on a project and lost money on it.
And maybe some of that is luck, but I have been very, very smart
about what's going to sell and how the market is going to react.
And I guess some advice I could give is, think about any childcare that you
have as investment in yourself and.
In your career, it takes a big investment to publish a book.
And I had $10,000.
I decided I was going to invest that into launching my own career.
And that's how much it costs to ship the book and print it and start my websites.
So I think for other people who are looking into self published titles, there
is a concept called "evergreen titles" . And those are titles that the information
is not going to go out of date.
It's like seasonal books.
You know, if you have a book that is based on Halloween, That is going to
come back every year and it's going to have a season and a place for it.
I hope that my sons understand and see that you can make
really any life you want work.
I feel really lucky that my kids get to see how two people can
make a living doing very creative things requires a lot of folks.
And patience, but that in the end, it is worth it to focus
on yourself and your passions.