Hayley Solano appears on my Zoom screen, her hair elegantly parted to one side and held in a low soft bun. She wears coral lipstick that matches the flowers in her sweater. The glass doors reflect her office window and the southern California sun. I notice two floor-to-ceiling white bookshelves filled with colorful books that are mostly light pink, blue, and lavender.
Some of the books are one’s she’s read as part of the paid book club she now runs. Hayley always hoped to make a living with her creativity, but she never imagined that something she loved so much as a kid would create a pathway to her life as a professional creator.
Hayley at Orchard House (home of Louisa May Alcott and setting of Little Women), age 5
Hayley can’t remember her life without books. “There was never a time in my life where I can remember not knowing who Anne Shirley was,” she says, referencing the protagonist in the 1908 book series Anne of Green Gables. “My mom was a huge fan of Anne of Green Gables and Little Women,” she shares, “and those stories were always a part of my life.”
Other women often pass down these books, and much of what are considered classics in this literary genre were written by some of the first women to be both widely published and who wrote strong female protagonists.
And while that era still barred many people from sharing their voices, the women who did first start to break through the male-dominated field inspired more underrepresented writers to keep going toward their creative dreams.
As part of the monthly interview series Hayley hosts for her paid book club, she interviewed one such prolific author, Mitali Perkins, who shares how characters like Jo in Little Women inspired her to be a writer. Mitali was born in India and has won multiple literary awards. Her book, Rickshaw Girl, was named one of the New York Public Library’s 100 Great Children’s Books and was adapted into a feature film.
Hayley was first introduced to classic literature when she was seven years old when her mom gave her a book for Christmas called Great Girl Stories. Her mom wrote, “I hope you enjoy meeting each of the girls in this book as much as I will enjoy reading this with you.”
From then on, Hayley was always reading, so much so that she was the frequent winner of all her elementary school reading challenges. 
“I can’t do this.”
But then, she stopped reading. At least for fun, anyway. In high school, books were assigned and started to feel like work instead of joy. She now associated books with homework. The last thing she wanted to do after finishing homework was more homework.
So reading and the stories she grew up with faded from view.
But, perhaps inspired by those authors or the ambitious female characters they wrote, what didn’t fade was Hayley’s belief in what she could accomplish.
She lived at home and paid for her EP with a credit card, but she was proud to be pursuing a dream. Pursuing dreams, and working for herself, was something she cared about a lot—especially when she worked a 9-5 job and realized that model was not for her. She remembers what it felt like when she tried to fit herself into that mold.
I felt so constrained. I was giving so much of my creativity to something I wasn’t actually creating.
I have always had this hope to do things on my terms as a creative person. I’ve always had this passion for creating something from the ground up that was totally mine.
She fully believed creating something herself was possible, a belief that came from her supportive parents and the characters she’d read about as a kid.
I wanted to be like the characters I loved. I’m still that way.
I wanted to make the movie, write the book, make the cartoon, and make the song.
She’s always known she wanted to be a creator, and music was the first way she would try. But, in addition to creating music, she needed to market it and decided to start a blog.
I wanted to give people a bigger idea of who I was outside of, “Here’s my song, here’s my song, here’s my song.” I wanted them to know what my interests are so we could find things in common. I wanted them to feel like we were friends and not just me constantly promoting things about myself.
Outside of music, she loved inspiring visuals and how, on her lowest days, spending even a few minutes on Pinterest would lift her back up. She wanted her blog to create that feeling for other people and show them how they could create it for themselves too. She called it An Enchanted Life.
“It wasn’t a good match.”
After a few years in the music industry, though, Hayley realized it wasn’t for her.
It’s a very competitive place, and I felt like the negatives outweighed the positives for me. It wasn’t a good match.
Around that same time, her social media following was growing steadily alongside her blog, so much so that small brands asked if she was available to help them with their content creation as a freelancer.
With music out of the picture and Hayley having moved out of her parents’ house and into her own place, she decided to take on freelance clients (something that eventually led her to work with Kit as one of our contractors who helps us make content like the stories and photography you see here).
Though in the early days, the admin work Hayley did was less creative than what she does now. But she was grateful that it allowed her to still avoid a traditional 9-5 and gave her, as she says, “the financial freedom to pursue my creative dreams.”
When she wasn’t doing freelance admin work, Hayley was running her lifestyle blog and Instagram account, both of which were still growing rapidly due in some part to the successful book giveaway contests she ran.
The beautiful classic books she’d begun to share on her blog and Instagram account were a natural outpouring of her decision to share what she loved online. The love for these books had never gone away, and now that she had an outlet to share that love with other people who loved them too, she started reading again.
But she didn’t expect where that would lead. 
“I think there’s a connection to the bravery these women had to tell their stories.”
Online, people started referring to Hayley as a “bookstagrammer,” someone who exclusively Instagrams about books. That wasn’t what she did, nor was that her intention then. But, it seemed, of all the varied lifestyle content she was creating, people resonated most with her classic literature content.
And once she started reading again, she couldn’t stop.
And the more people she met who were flocking to her content, the more she realized she wasn’t alone in finding inspiration in these stories.
I think there’s a deep appreciation for female authors of that time who paved the way for women to be able to say what they want to say and express their hearts. I think there’s a connection to the bravery these women had to tell their stories.
In response, she started a free book club on her blog in January 2020, and people loved it. They read books like Little Women, The Secret Garden, and Anne of Green Gables.
A lot of the women in the book club told Hayley that they were “that one girl in high school who read Jane Austen,” and many of them felt pretty alone then. But with this book club, all those “one girls” didn’t feel so alone anymore. They loved reading together, discussing, and even sharing some of their own stories.
In 2020, Hayley was making her full-time living from freelance admin work and creative client projects, but there was still a deep desire in her heart to make a living from something she created.
Also, running the book club cost money, and she knew that to keep paying the bills and not burn out completely, she couldn’t justify all the time and money going into the book club for much longer unless she could figure out another plan.
And she was about to figure one out.
“How am I gonna make money?”
The plan began to form quickly after some simple Googling. Hayley searched for “how to make money online”. What interested her the most was what she read about creating a paid membership website.
She wondered, “Do people do paid book clubs? Is that something they would pay for? And what kind of things would you offer for an experience like that?”
She found at least one paid book club, which gave her hope. “I thought, okay, so it exists,” she says. Maybe it was something she could try.
I was approaching that crossroads of, “How am I gonna make money?” The algorithm was changing frequently on Instagram, and I was reaching fewer people and still not making income as a creator.
I researched the importance of having an email list and how to have a way to know for sure that my content would be able to reach the people who wanted to see it, which is not guaranteed on social media.
It was something I hadn’t prioritized in the past, and I was trying to do the things I hadn’t done yet that could lead me to success.
Once she landed on the book club idea, she used Kit to build a waiting list and communicate with that audience regularly and deeply.
I felt like I was able to establish a more meaningful connection with my audience, and I encouraged them in the first email of the welcome sequence to reply and introduce themselves to me.
I was responding and having these one-on-one conversations through email with my followers for the first time. That felt more intimate than a simple DM exchange.
It just felt different, and I think they appreciated it a lot, and I found it fulfilling because sometimes, when you grow a following, it’s hard to visualize it because you’re trying to create one type of content that appeals to all of them. But they’re all individuals, all individual stories.
Kit gave me the ability to connect with them on that level.
And she thinks putting in years of relationship-building with her audience before launching anything paid set the foundation for what was to come.
Sometimes you’ll see a new business, and they’re like, “Here’s our product!” And you’re wondering, “Who are you?”
Instead of launching a paid book club right away, Hayley decided to test the idea first.
She put a survey together that described what a paid book club of hers might entail such as live Zoom interviews with authors, exclusive giveaways, discount codes to literary shops, and opportunities to connect with fellow members. She also workshopped the name The Enchanted Book Club, and asked her audience if it was something they’d be interested in and how much they’d be willing to pay for it.
She sent that survey to her email list in October 2020, and hundreds of people responded, saying they would absolutely pay for what she described.
Then I just went to work. I thought, “okay, this is what I’m doing.”
She wanted to lean more into creative work, especially her own, but she knew if this paid book club didn’t work, it was likely that, as she says, “books aren’t going to be able to pay the bills.”
She loved this growing community and the work she got to do for it so much. If she couldn’t turn it into some kind of business, she knew that would mean it would be relegated to only the scraps of time she had left after her client work, scraps that were getting smaller by the day. She badly wanted to spend more time on the book club, and the idea of having to spend less time on it broke her heart.
She was most scared about what would happen if it didn’t work, but she was also scared about what would happen if it did. Especially because that would mean she’d have to actually start hosting live interview events.
I was really scared of hosting virtual events and interviewing authors. I had a vision for how I wanted it to be, but I didn’t have any formal experience.
If it worked, the book club would include interviews with contemporary authors, tour guides of famous literary places, and even family members of late classic authors. It was the paid book club offering that potential members were most excited about, and it was the one Hayley was most interested in creating, inspired by how encouraged she always felt after going to an in-person author event or book signing. But she was also worried if she could really pull it off.
Hayley launched The Enchanted Book Club in December 2020, and the launch didn’t go as expected. 
“It was terrifying every time.”
Hayley began the launch by building an email waiting list, and hundreds of people signed up to learn more.
When the paid book club officially launched, 10% of the waiting list joined. While it was hard for Hayley not to imagine what it would be like if everyone on the waitlist signed up, she thought a 10% conversion rate was promising, especially for a first launch, and was thrilled to welcome the very first members of her new community. They helped give her, as she says, “the confidence to know this would be a worthwhile thing to spend my time on.”
It was really exciting. Think of all those people in a room. And their intention was to join this community and be a part of something. It wasn’t just a one-off purchase of a product. It was something that was ongoing and I could establish a relationship with them over time.
After the launch, the next thing she needed to start creating was the promised monthly interview series. She was still terrified, but music had taught her how to move forward in fear and that if she waited for the fear to go away, she’d be waiting forever. She says her first live author interviews felt exactly like the first times she performed her songs live on stages.
It was terrifying every time, but I did it every time, and I grew every time.
Hayley was intentional about making these interviews as high quality as possible, especially since it was important for her to make sure book club members always felt like they were getting more value than what they were paying for.
To date, she’s interviewed people including Kevin Sullivan the Emmy award-winning director of the Anne of Green Gables films, Julie Andrews’ daughter and co-author of her memoirs Emma Walton Hamilton, the New York Times bestselling author of The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society Annie Barrows (adapted to a film starring Lily James); contemporary international bestselling author Natalie Jenner, and the granddaughter of the author of Anne of Green Gables.
At the end of one of Hayley’s interviews with beloved watercolor artist and New York Times bestselling author Susan Branch, Susan looks directly into the camera and says warmly to Hayley, “You have the best book club, I have to say. The things that you provide for people, what a gift. And I know you’re just sharing the things you love. You’ve made this. You’ve created this job and this life for yourself. I’m really happy for you. I’m gonna love watching what all comes from this too. Because I know there’s gonna be more.” 
“You need to be charging more.”
Hayley hoped for it to be more too, and after the launch, she decided to take growing the book club as seriously as she took creating it. To start, she set aside a small dedicated marketing budget each month.
The publicist loved Hayley’s work and was blown away by the strength of her online presence, visual brand, and book club offerings. The room for growth the publicist saw was actually in Hayley’s pricing structure.
She was looking at the website and she said, “You need to be charging more.”
What Hayley was offering, the publicist said, was truly an elevated experience, and she encouraged Hayley to raise her price to $15 a month and offer an annual membership that would give two months for free for people who wanted to commit for a year. Hayley’s original members would always get the original price they signed up for, but raising these prices for new members was something the publicist encouraged her to do because she truly believed Hayley was offering that level of value and more.
Hayley took all of the publicist’s advice, and it worked.
I almost doubled my membership and I tripled the amount of monthly income in just one month.
Making a living from her creative work was a dream come true, and the book club continues to grow not only in membership but also in offerings. Soon, book club members will meet in person to go on one of what will become many literary trip options with The Enchanted Book Club, taking tours such as a Jane Austen-themed trip to England, a Little Women-themed trip to Massachusetts, and an Anne of Green Gables-themed trip to Prince Edward Island.
Hayley says she feels encouraged as a creator now more than ever before, especially compared to her early days in music.
It’s more encouraging to create work and know you’re going to get something more tangible out of it. It changes the creative process because I find myself getting discouraged less than I used to. I’m so grateful that I saw it through and rerouted the way I did instead of just throwing in the towel.
I’m also a lot more confident now than I used to be, and I think that came from starting this business and doing these virtual interviews.
The only reason I’ve been able to build the business I’ve built is because I just tried. I just put myself out there, and I tried.
And my inspirations, particularly literary heroines, always kept me encouraged. These beloved characters and their creators certainly endured far greater obstacles, and in the face of these hardships, they kept going.
Disclosure from the author: In 2023 I became an annual paying member of The Enchanted Book Club.
