As a fellow author, I see you.

You have a goal to go full-time as an author.

You want to tell stories for a living.

You want to see your books on the shelves of every bookstore worldwide.

You want thousands of new readers discovering your work every day.

But the problem is… your books aren’t selling.

And you think they should be selling. But in this article, we’re going to get brutally honest and look at whether it actually makes sense for your book to be selling the way you want it to… or if you’re actually blocking your own book’s success.

Being something of an entrepreneur myself, I spend a lot of time learning from experts and studying creators and business owners. And a piece of advice I received recently changed my life, which was this:

You have a value that you give to the marketplace

AND, you are already making the money that equals the value you’re currently giving to the marketplace.

Ouch.

This really hurt to hear at first, knowing I had poured all of myself into my recent book, knowing it has huge earning potential, and sitting in the reality that I was making less than $1k a month off the book.

But the more I thought about it… I realised how true (and honest) the advice is, and how more people really need to hear it.

I want to share an example that I think will help you see this advice in a new light.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that you’re a high ticket coach or mentor, who wants to sell a $10k offer 10 times, and bring in 6 figures.

That’s a huge amount of money, and a life-changing milestone to hit. And I know for a lot of fellow authors, really envisioning that scenario of being able to close $10k sales and see that land in your bank account, and then deliver on an offer worth that much… it feels big.

So the question becomes… can the average person actually hold this offer and bring in this amount of money without completely upleveling (not changing—uplevelling) themselves to do it?

Can you energetically/emotionally hold it?

…really visualise yourself selling and delivering this offer.

Are you showing up like a hot mess on social media promoting it? Are you running late to every client call? Are your emotions a wreck after your 9 – 5 job? Are you able to emotionally navigate what the client is bringing to the table in every call? Could you actually hold 10 clients at once?

Or… do you have rock solid boundaries between personal stuff and business stuff? Have you figured out a way to show up for your clients when you’re solid and can actually hold space for them?

Can you physically hold it?

…are you someone who can sell with consistency? Who has the stamina to do the emotional labour of 2 – 5 calls per day (possibly in your evenings or weekends?)

Or are you showing up for yourself and for your clients burnt out, unfit and exhausted?

Is the business even in a place to support it? 

…do you have the customer service team, the onboarding processes, the automations to support the caliber of client experience your client expects after paying $10k?

I took you through this example to help you really see the difference between someone doing the bare minimum vs someone who has made intentional shifts and decisions to be able to hold and show up for a bigger result.

Sure, your book can absolutely bring in a million dollars. And you might even argue that if only it would just happen already, of course you’d have the time and energy and money to show up on a bigger level and create a bigger result.

But you have to go first. It doesn’t happen the other way around. A million dollars won’t create itself out of thin air.

If you are not currently showing up in the marketplace in a way that contributes big value daily, you won’t see that coming back to you (the same way you might if you had 100 books instead of 1, or if that 1 book was reaching 10 x the audience. Again, it won’t happen until you take the action to make it happen).

If you really want to change your results, it’s time to get brutally honest about how you’re showing up each day for your book(s). And these questions can help you audit your actions:

1) How do you approach and view marketing?

Is the majority of your time (and content) spent complaining about how hard it is and how you wish you never had to do it?

Or are you constantly working to elevate your content and make it better?

Do you stay consistent for a while then fall off the bandwagon (then repeat the cycle?)

Or are your working on processes and habits that support you to be able to show up regularly?

2) How do you handle interactions with readers?

Does one negative review throw you or lots of DMs overwhelm you?

Or can you confidently say you could hold a community with hundreds of daily conversations?

Do you actually seek out new readers and create spaces to engage with them?

Or do you ignore your readers because it’s already a lot to respond to comments/DMs and it’s the last priority on your list right now?

3) Are you showing up daily like someone doing it professionally?

Do you even write regularly? Do you hit the wordcount goals and deadlines you say you want to hit?

Or are you constantly making excuses for why you can’t and pushing it back?

How do you expect to be someone who releases 2 books a year (without a day job getting in the way) when you aren’t even trying to write regularly and build that habit now?

^ When you really visualise yourself in the identity of a full-time earning author, does that person match who you’re being right now?

When I really thought about this for myself, I realised I wasn’t even being that person. I see myself writing TV shows and video games eventually, but *just* writing my next book has been a struggle recently. And if I’m brutally honest with what’s been stealing my time and focus, it’s been things like TikTok and television in my precious, downtime hours.

There’s no way I could handle more creative work with my current habits, so of course, I’m not putting anywhere near close to that level of value out into the world currently (and I’m certainly not ready to hold it if it showed up tomorrow).

So look—obviously your current, day-to-day isn’t going to look 100% the same as the million dollar earning version of you, since you don’t have all the resources yet (time, money, energy, etc).

But it’s more about the identity level here—are you at least approaching your goals like that person? Are you making intentional decisions like that person? Are you thinking like that person?

Are you being someone who gives that level of value to the marketplace every day?

Because if you, like me, are kind of half-assing some areas of your business, it actually makes sense why you’re earning the level of income you’re earning from the books.

The biggest trap is expecting your books to bring it the potential that it can bring in, without doing any of the work to reach that level.

Yes, your book could lead to a movie deal. But are you even presenting yourself online as someone ready to negotiate with executives?

Yes, your book could move thousands of units per month. But are you even being someone who is willing to promote your book on a daily basis?

Yes, your book could become a global franchise? But are you even doing the work of leaning into that future vision and branding it accordingly?

This is the brutally honest picture to look at… and it will reveal where your gaps to success are.