Meet the Author: Jessica Moorhouse

There are a lot of books about money out there—many of them excellent! Few of them, however, delve into the roots of our feelings about and relationships with money. That’s why I was excited to talk with Jessica Moorhouse, host of the More Money Podcast and author of Everything but Money: The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom (affiliate link*).

In our conversation, we cover how she built a writing practice that helped her finish the book in 10 months, what she’s learned about editing and marketing, and how she dealt with that familiar issue: imposter syndrome.

​Jessica Moorhouse is a sought-after money expert, TV personality and speaker. She is an Accredited Financial Counsellor Canada®, an award-winning financial content creator and the host of the chart-topping More Money Podcast (4+ million downloads).

As a personal finance educator for over 13 years, she has given presentations throughout North America and is regularly featured by major Canadian and US media including CBC News, CTV News, BNN Bloomberg, the Toronto Star, Forbes and USA Today.

Her debut book Everything but Money: The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom came out December 31, 2024 (HarperCollins Canada) and became an Indigo Staff Pick, Globe and Mail Bestseller, Toronto Star Bestseller, Quill & Quire Bestseller, and Amazon Bestseller.

You can find Jessica on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Tell me about your journey to writing Everything But Money.

It really started in 2019 when I got serious about actually writing a proposal, because it was a dream of mine to have a book. But I was honestly just too terrified of the rejection, so I put it off.

I had a proposal written and ready to go at the end of 2019 and then we started shopping it around to some agents. And then 2020 hit, and the pandemic. I pivoted like, “You know what? Maybe not a good time. Survival is kind of what I want to do right now.”

In 2022, I had a publisher reach out to me in the spring, saying, “Hey, we'd like you to write a book for us. We have a specific idea in mind.”

I don't know about that, but hey, this is the first time someone that was actually interested. And it made me feel a little bit more confident about giving it another go.

I had an agent already. He deals with speaking engagements and brand partnerships, but he also reps his clients for books and stuff like that.

I worked with a book coach this time to redo my proposal and get a second pair of eyes. We worked for a number of months on that. I didn’t know if that first publisher was really it for me.
“Let's shop it around and see what happens.” So we did that.

I'm based out of Canada, and we focused on Canadian publishers. Harper Collins Canada was interested in having a meeting. I was so nervous.

We went through the proposal, and overall they were like, “We like it, but there's actually one line specifically in your proposal that we're more interested in.”

My book was a pretty generic, traditional personal finance book, but I had this one line that said I want to speak to the connection between trauma, psychology, behavior, and societal injustice and how those impact your personal finances.

It was that particular line, and they were like, “Oh, we are more interested in what that means. Could you rewrite a proposal and make your book just about that?”

The iron was hot, so to speak, so, yeah, absolutely, I can rewrite that proposal. I rewrote it in like a month and a half, so they didn't lose interest. I did it all myself. It honestly was pretty easy to rewrite, because I think it was all in there.

I handed in the proposal and got a deal within a month. They were basically like, “Here's the deal. You’ve got 10 months to write a book. Bye.” I was like, “Oh, I always thought that the hardest part was getting the deal.”

The hard part is recognizing you have a deal and you've got a very tight timeline. I have friends who have tighter timelines. I think you've talked to Kara Perez. I had 10 months, which is luxurious, apparently, but it was intimidating because I'd never written a book. I'd never written anything this long.

I honestly have never considered myself a writer, even though I've been a blogger since 2011. I never felt confident in my writing skills. There's so many great writers out there, and I didn't know where to start.

I knew there was a lot of research, so I thought maybe I had to find a research assistant. I honestly couldn't find one. I interviewed a few people, and they said they couldn't dedicate that much time to it. I did all the research myself. I went full force and challenged myself.

I've talked to other authors over the years. Having my podcast is great to have authors because then I get to ask them questions after the episode. Sometimes they're like, “Oh no, we had to have monthly check-ins.” Or it was very hands-on. And some not so much.

My publisher was very hands-off, which at first scared me, but that's exactly what I needed, because I don't like having a manager. I don't like having a boss.

I don't like someone in my business. I'm my own boss. I'm self-employed, and so I'm very good at keeping myself accountable.

I checked in with my editor maybe twice during the writing process, just to give her a heads up on what's going on. But everything else, I had my own system. I created my own system to keep things organized and on time and by word count.

I'd love to hear how you built your writing practice.

I talked to a lot of authors, and they are very structured. They're like, “I get up at seven in the morning and write for three hours and then I do my workday.” That's not how I run my business at all.

I get things done and I'm very organized, but I like being flexible. So, some days I like to be more creative. Some days, let's just do business admin stuff.

It’s based on what needs to be done, how many hours do I have on this day, and what do I feel like doing?

I'm still running my business at this point as well, but somehow, it didn't feel that cumbersome, which is funny.

I was able to accomplish a normal amount of work and also wrote a book, but it didn't feel like it was too much. I don't know why. I don't know what happened. I just made space for it.

I organized my writing schedule based on word count and chapters. My proposal initially had 10 or 11 chapters. We got it down to nine.

I organized it. I had a spreadsheet that I showed my editor. She's like, “I've never seen anyone make a spreadsheet like this.” Okay, but I'm a spreadsheet person, and so I organized it by the word count they wanted.

That was 80,000 words and so then I basically broke it down, saying, well, I should probably have about even numbers for each chapter.

So at any point I knew how far along I was, how many more words I needed for each chapter. It was easy for me to organize in that I had 10 months to write 10 chapters, a chapter a month, and then I got it down to nine.

And honestly, it worked pretty well. Some chapters took longer. There were a couple that took maybe a month and a half. And the last chapter I wrote in two weeks because I ran out of time, so I had to.

It all worked out how it needed to. My greatest fear was asking for an extension, because I know that shifts the marketing and the release date, and I really didn't want to.

I knew 10 months was definitely a lot of time, and I worked really well under pressure. In between that, it wasn't just writing—it was a lot of research, a lot of interviews.

I also did a bunch of different forms of therapy so I could write about it and share my experience. So there were a lot of activities as well.

How did you balance everything? What support was useful during that period?

I definitely got more comfortable saying no to things. Being self-employed, you get used to saying yes to everything because you're afraid they'll stop asking. I got comfortable being like, “I don't have the capacity for that.”

Honestly, it did get a lot easier halfway through the book, because then you’ve proved yourself. You can write a book. You wrote half of one, so you're that much closer.

The hardest part was writing the first couple of chapters, because you really have a blank page, and you're like, “I don't know. This could go anywhere.” But once you have that first half, you can see where it's going to go. You can see that more visually. The first part was terrifying.

The hardest part of writing for me, at least, was imposter syndrome. “Oh my god. How did I con them into giving me a book deal? I told them I could write a book, and I said I could, but I don't know how.” No one really talks about that part.

The hardest part was believing in yourself. That's the really exciting part, when you get to halfway through, and then one more chapter, and it really does feel near the end. Then you're like, “I just want to get this done. I want this off my plate. I want to live my life again.”

It's the longest consistent project I've worked on in my life. One thing for 10 months. It's the longest thing I've ever had to do and sometimes it feels a bit lonely.

That’s why Kara and I really reconnected, because we were writing books at the same time. For a good two or three months, we would meet every Monday and chitchat for a little bit, and then we would just write.

We’d mute ourselves and have each other on the screen to keep each other company, and support each other. No one really understands what the writing process is unless you've done it before.

Often you're not writing a book at the same time as someone else, so you don't have that kind of camaraderie.

And I really wanted to make sure this was the book that I wanted to write. I was very concerned about anyone seeing it.

Some people are like, “Oh, I gave some people pages to see what they say.” Absolutely not. No one is reading anything until it is fully formed and done, because I was so worried about being influenced by someone's opinion and reconsidering what I put in the book.

My husband didn't even read it until it was fully edited. He made me let him read the first chapter, and I'm like, “That's it, that's all you get.”

I didn't get anyone to read it until the whole manuscript was done, and that was really important, because I didn't want to be swayed in one direction or the other.

How did you deal with your feelings of impostor syndrome?

The proof is in there but you still feel it, I think because it’s something that I hadn’t done before. As with anything I've ever done, you always think, “What if I can't do it?”

I thought that when I started my podcast. I've had my podcast for 10 years now. I was terrified of, what if no one listens? What if I'm bad at it?

And, yeah, when you start out, it's not going to be good. I cannot listen to the first season of my podcast; it is so cringe. But I was just getting started and learning.

I think that the stakes are really high for a book, because there are other people that get involved in the editing, the copy editing, and all that stuff.

You don't want to come out with a book and have it be bad. What if people hate it? What if people say this, they say that? What if my meaning or my message doesn't properly get across, or whatever the case. It's so difficult to balance.

I want to be authentic, and this is what I want to say, and also there’s the fear. What do people think? You can't just be like, “I don't care what people think.” You have to care, because they're the readers. You are writing it for a very specific audience.

The only way I can say that I got over it is like with anything I do in life. I have all these thoughts and fears, and I just do it anyway. You have to get through it. You just have to be in free fall. If I fail, I fail, and it is what it is.

Oftentimes I find, at least in my life, that I rarely fail. I do sometimes, but more often I succeed. That fear of failure is so strong.

You feel like chances are you're going to fail more than you succeed. But I don't think that's the case for most people, honestly. And it could depend on what you think is a failure or not.

What were your metrics of success for this book?

I wanted to first make sure that when I read the full manuscript after it's fully edited, I was like,
“Oh, this is good.”

I got a really great opportunity to also read my audiobook. I had a great moment of reading it out loud in its entirety, so I really got the full effect. By the end of it, I was like, “Damn, this is a good book. I feel good.”

So that's the number one success. I'm proud of this book out in the world, and I think it's going to help people.

The second, of course, there are some vanity metrics. I would love to be a bestseller. I would love to sell out or earn my advance. I'd love for people to give it positive reviews.

Those are the things that you hope for but again, those are all things beyond your control, because there are some amazing books out there that I've read that don't get attention. And so you also need to remind yourself of that.

I will say, though, I've gotten some of those things. I'm a national bestseller in Canada. It does feel pretty good.

But also, like I write in the book, those accolades, those new metrics—they feel good, and then they dissipate, and then you start fixating on, “But I didn't get this, I didn't get that.”

I remind myself, even if you do get that, it'll feel good for a minute, and then you're going to fixate on something else that you didn't get. It doesn't actually matter.

The best thing to me is that I've been able to do a book tour throughout Canada. Having people show up and say that they read the book, that it really touched them—that's the best metric. You actually impacted an individual, a real person.

My life is so online. Meeting someone in real life is so amazing. “Oh, my God, you read it, you like it.” That's huge.

What was the publishing process like?

Once I handed in the manuscript, there was a beautiful period of a month and a half where I didn't have to do any book stuff. It was like a little mental vacation to get my life sorted while they were doing the initial edits.

I was a bit naive in that I thought the editing process would be so much easier than the writing process. It was, in terms of effort and work, but it took a lot of time.

There are little things that you don't expect. I did footnotes for all of the references throughout the book. Multiple pages. It’s a lot.

While I was writing the book, I always had it in the back of my head: being a woman in finance who was constantly questioned about, “What do you know?” I'm like, “Fine, I'm going to back up every single thing I say with a reference.”

When it came to the editing process, they were like, “So, for formatting, we need you to do it.” They didn't tell me what style to put the footnotes in, so it was in the wrong style.

There were hundreds of them. It took me a week to do it. It felt like being in university again.

No one tells you that you're the one that has to do this. There are so many elements that I didn't know about. Like, yes, you have an editor—but if you have some parts of your book that are maybe culturally sensitive, you want to have a sensitivity consultant to look them over.

I had a few chapters that were about racism and things like that. I wanted someone who is an expert that can look: Am I using the right language, all these things that I'm not an expert in, and that is not something the publisher provides. I had to pay out of pocket to do that.

My publisher didn't even think to suggest it. They were like, “Oh yeah, that might be a good idea.” I could have said something really archaic or something like that.

These are all things that you have to get done before you hand in your draft or while you're writing it, which is confusing. Is there enough time to get to all these parts? There are so many little elements that no one really tells you about.

The first large edit, which is really structure and things like that—that was actually fairly easy. I've heard stories from other people where it was like, “Oh, we had to rework it.” For me, we moved a chapter forward, and that was it.

A lot of it was more getting it down, because I'm very wordy. When I handed in my manuscript, I think it was 95,000 words, and they're like, “We need to get it back to 80.” So it was more about, how can we make this more succinct? That wasn't too bad.

But you know, when you read a book, even a famous book, you find a grammatical error? That's my worst nightmare. It is, I can't stand it. Who missed that? And you kind of blame the author, like, how did they not pick that up?

The thing I found is, because there's so many cooks in the kitchen—your editor, your copy editor, all these other people, and it goes to formatting—it is so easy for someone to mess up.

We recorded my audio book in October, and that should have been the final, final manuscript. I found at least five big mistakes. While I was recording it, I'd be like, “Sorry, guys.” I’d take a screenshot and be like, “Hey, what is this doing here? This is a big boo-boo. I didn't do this.”

This was literally, like, two weeks before it was meant to print. If I hadn’t read the audiobook, those mistakes would have made it into the book.

As an author, it is your responsibility to catch everything, because even though these people work for the publisher and they're doing their best, it's still your baby. They're just at a job, and you have to be your own advocate.

Speaking of that, things like the title, whether you're going to narrate your audiobook, the cover, all those elements, you really have to advocate for yourself. They will suggest things that you probably are like, “No.”

If you're like, “Well, I don't want to rock the boat,” you're going to hate your title, your cover, all these things. They presented a cover that was not the right fit. I said, “Please present some other options.”

One of the other options was my current cover, and there were a few little things that we just kind of zhuzhed. The title was formatted differently. The colors were a little different. Having a marketing design background, I know what looks good.

You really have to speak up, because they will steamroll over you. They have a job to do, fair enough, but you can't rely on them to get it right because they don't know what's in your mind.

I had to really advocate to read the audiobook, because they were going to hire someone. I'm like, “No, no, I need to read my book. This is in my voice.” That was really important to me, and that was a bit of a situation, but I'm so glad that I was able to read it.

And I know that's why we have the sales that we do. People are like, “Oh, you're narrating? I’ll get the audiobook.”

This is where you have to fight. I did get some really good advice from a friend who has a couple books. Sometimes, as a woman, you could be labeled difficult, which is disgusting and sexist, but it still exists. I didn't really feel like that, because everyone on my team was a woman.

But she said, “Pick three things that are non-negotiables, and then try to let go of other things that aren't as important.”

You’ve got to play the dance a little bit, but pick no more than three things that are really important to the end result to be the hill you’re willing to die on. And so that's what I did: Cover, title, audiobook.

What's next for you? Is there another book on the horizon?

I love how people ask me that. I've spent two and a half years with this book so far. I'm not quite done.

That’s something I see with other authors. They're on to the next thing. I'm like, you spent years writing this! My goal is literally spending all of 2025 on it, because my book came out right on New Year's Eve.

I'm spending all of 2025 getting the word out about this book. I too often see authors spend a month, maybe two, promoting it, and then they stop and move on. Then no one knows about the book they spent two years on.

You can’t necessarily do all the traditional media. I did my radio, my TV stuff, the first month it came out. I'm still booking some stuff.

Sometimes it's not too late to be like, “Hey, there's something in the world that I can tie in that's newsworthy to my book.” I just booked a morning show. It's never too late.

There are still podcasts, there's still a book tour you can do, there are still speaking things you can do. Work with corporate, sell your book, and I'll speak to your business.

There are so many things that you should be doing to market your book. Your publisher will help you in a sense. My publisher had a PR team for a couple of months, and then they're kind of done.

I'm like, “Cool. Now it's up to me to kind of continue with this momentum,” and that's how you're going to continue to sell books, especially on social media.

I started following a couple authors that are not in my niche at all, but they do really good marketing, to the point where I'm like, should I buy that book? I don't even like horror, or I don't even like romance, but I really like what they're doing on social media.

It is so smart, and they're not doing anything necessarily unique, but they're doing it so well over and over. Going to the bookstore and signing their book and making a reel.

That's how you get new people to discover your book, even if it's a couple years old. So that's what I'm doing all this year.

After this year, we'll take a look at if I maybe want to write a second one.

Especially being with a Canadian publisher, what I recognize, or what I found out, was they will help me market in Canada, but not the US. The US has a lot more people, and my book was written for people in the US and Canada. Anyone can pick it up and you'll see yourself.

Even for podcasts, they're like, “Oh, we don’t really have a rolodex of podcasts in the US, so that's all on you.” It's happened to all my contacts. They also didn't push me to any US media, so that's something I have to do.

I've also talked to so many authors in the US too, who are like, “My publisher didn't do anything.” So that's something you have to recognize and see: Does it make sense to spend all your time doing it yourself, or hiring a PR team?

I contacted one and the normal going rate is about $20,000 USD. Expensive. That’s probably more than most people's advances. It'll just eat up everything, and no PR team can guarantee anything. That's not their job.

There are things that I feel like a lot of authors think about in the writing process, that for me have been a big learning experience once it's out there in the world.

What advice would you give to another writer on writing or marketing?

No matter what kind of book you want to put out there, in this day and age, you have to have a brand and an online presence.

I know part of the reason I got a book deal was because I already had a brand and online presence. I'm already doing media and stuff like that as a money expert. That made it a little bit easier.

If you're starting from scratch, I would say even while you're writing your book, start doing that work too. Make your Instagram account. Do what you know. Start a podcast.

See if there's any way you can get onto traditional media as an expert in whatever field that you're in, and start laying the groundwork.

You have probably a year to write, a year to edit. You’ve got two years to lay that groundwork. It'll be so much easier for you when it's time to promote your book, because they'll instantly ask you, “Oh, you have a book. What's your Instagram?”

There's stuff on Instagram that relates to the book that I just wrote. So you want to do that stuff in advance or while you're writing the book.

I thought, “Oh, I'm an author.” You're a salesperson first, author second a little bit. You need to sell this book because it is your pride and joy.

You spend so much time on it, and so I'm selling books on my book tour events, or a friend's event whereI didn't get paid. I paid my own way to travel, did this little speaking thing, and then I was there with the bookseller.

You are a salesperson. And don't feel like that's a bad thing. Just own it, because you want to sell this.

This is a really great product, and you think people should have it, right? Most people would be like, “But I'm an artist.” Yeah, but you’ve also got to sell. You’ve got to put food on the table.

What's the best book that you've read recently?

One is Never Mind, part of the Patrick Melrose series by Edward St. Aubyn (affiliate link*). It’s one of those books that was really good, but I don’t know if I can recommend it or give a copy to someone because it’s quite dark.

The most recent book that I just finished was a really good one. I love a good celebrity memoir. Those are always fun, easy to read. The book I just finished celebrity memoir-wise was Kelly Bishop’s The Third Gilmore Girl (affiliate link*). She was the grandma. She’s in her 80s, and she’s lived a life! I didn’t know she was a Broadway star and won a Tony. It’s a good beach read.

Meet the Author interviews are lightly edited for clarity.

I so appreciated Jessica’s clear-eyed advice about navigating the publishing process, choosing your non-negotiables, and thinking about how you’ll market and sell a book even as you’re writing it.

Grab your copy of Everything But Money (affiliate link*)!

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