Why am I Struggling as an Author? It Was Time to Get Real…

I had been writing and publishing for several years. My books were good, the stories engaging (so my readers said), the covers were good (enough), until I could afford a rebrand… so why was I struggling?

Ever wondered this? Ever thought about it so much that you stress, get depressed, beat yourself up, or even consider just giving it up all together?

I did. More than a few times.

Then I saw this quote from one of my favorite non-fic writers, Brendaon Burchard:

"We didn't have any money... because I wasn't doing the work. I was faking it. I was looking for inspiration instead of, executing the plan. I had the plan, I bought the course, I already had these people saying, this is how to do this, but I wasn't doing it. Why? Because I came from nothing, and I was comfortable having nothing. And so guess what? I could have gone on years being broke. Sometimes there is something outside of you, that you need to connect with. And that is the very moment you will become successful. - Brendon"

That simple statement punched me in the gut, because it was me.

And admitting that to myself hurt, stung, felt like a slap and a punch all at once. But it was the honest reality of my situation.

I was writing and publishing… but if you’ve been in this career any length of time, I don’t need to tell you that there’s a LOT more that needs to happen, the marketing, the advertising, the promotions, the relationship-building… on, and on, and on…

And that was where I was faking it. Sure… I could say that I had over twenty books published, and that was 100% fact. And it felt really nice, and gave me all the warm fuzzies to say it and see the appraising, sometimes awestruck look in someone’s eyes, and wrap their praise around me like a soft, cozy little blanket.

But, all the warm fuzzies and cozy little praise-blankets in the world don’t pay the rent.

Nope. What pays the rent is cold-hard cash royalties. And for that, I needed to quit ‘faking’ it, put in the real work… the RIGHT TASKS… and execute the damned plan.

Consistently.

Not just when the motivation and inspiration hit me.

Ugh. Not easy. Simple? Yes. But not easy. Because the first step in tha – for me – was owning my own BS, admitting that I had been playing at being a full-time author, and then clearing off my whiteboard and starting from basics.

I knew what needed to be done – I had the plan. I just wasn’t fully executing the plan.

Knowing that changes needed to happen, I started with the basics.

• How can I improve my actual storytelling?
  • For me, this was revisiting courses I’d taken before, reading books on craft, and reading lots more in my genres and making notes on what I read.
• How can I make relationship building with my readers simple, easy, and low-stress? (because, let’s face it, if it was going to be hard, complicated, or uber time consuming, I wasn’t going to do it, at least not with the consistency that was required.)
  • I improved my consistency with newsletters – and no, they don’t have to be NYT bestsellers – we tend to overthink them!
  • I started researching ways to build up to affording a full-time virtual assistant to help manage my social media – but in the meantime, I asked my family for some help, and surprisingly, they were happy to help out!
• How can I bring a better, more eye-catching product to the bookshelves? (i.e., better covers, better blurbs)
  • I have an extensive background in tech before I became an author – so I expanded my knowledge and learned how to create some book covers myself.
• How can I extend my reach, find new readers, and do this in a simplified, almost-but-not-quite-automated way? (more ads and promotions)
  • I was already ‘dabbling’ in ads – I rededicated myself to my ads, creating new ads to keep them fresh, monitoring and analyzing the data for what worked and what didn’t, tweaked, and revisited some courses I had taken in the past.

Much of that was learning, expanding my skill set and knowledgebase (can’t afford a lot for courses? YouTube is your friend!) … but even more of it was thinking. How can I do all the things that I need to be doing to not only write, but promote without it taking over my life, becoming super-stressful, or taking away from the other priorities that will always be priorities (family, health, etc.)?

And that is the part that looks different for each of us, because each of us have very different lives and circumstances! There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this – and don’t believe anyone who tells you their way is the one-true-best-and-right-method… because what works for the goose does not always work for the gander, there is much trial and error that goes into finding your best-fitting method.

But… it all starts with getting very real and very honest with yourself.

Are you “faking it” in some areas of your writing career? Congrats! You’ve just joined that many of us in that same boat! Now… tell me how you plan on executing, because I’d love to hear it!