The sixth pillar of the Profitable Author Life You Love framework is the one that I mentioned was the most personally challenging over 30 years of self-employment—and the most transformative.

Up Your Mindset Game As You Go, From Where You’re At is built on a deceptively simple premise: you are right, right now. You are enough. You know enough. And from that grounded starting point, you can work on the inner game of authordom and authorpreneurship incrementally, in whatever ways speak to you.

The original article (link above) maps eight categories of mindset work—wisdom, self-grace, self-cushion, perspective and self-talk, grit and resilience, growth mindset, emotional processing, and love and preference—with dozens of linked articles and resources to explore. This companion piece helps you find your entry point and turn the framework into your personal practice.

1. Start with the Category That’s Already Calling You

The mindset framework doesn’t ask you to work through all eight categories—either in order or all of them or even most of them. It only nudges you to find the area that currently hits home and begin there. Read through the eight categories in the original article and notice which one produces the most recognition—the small sting of “oh, that’s me”—or the most relief at being seen. Grit? Perspective? Impostor syndrome? Begin there The others will become relevant in their own time; the one that’s already active is the one that will give you the most traction right now.

2. Adopt One Mantra That’s Actually True for You

“You are right, right now” is the foundational mantra of this pillar—but a mantra only works if it hits home. If that one doesn’t, find the version that does. What do you truly believe, even on a hard day, about yourself and your work? Maybe it’s I have written books, and I will write more. Maybe it’s I show up even when I don’t feel like it or I can and will learn business skills that will improve my author life one step at a time. Build your mindset practice on something you already know to be true about yourself rather than something aspirational you don’t yet believe. Later you can stretch to more expansive thinking.

3. List Your Personal Collection of Go-To Tricks

The article doesn’t prescribe a mindset practice—it offers a menu. Meditation, visualization, affirmations, accountability buddies, coaching, therapy, self-help books, radical acceptance, thinking bigger—some are woo-woo, some are practical, all of them work for someone. Take stock of what you already have in your toolkit. What do you turn to when your head isn’t right? What has moved you out of a bad spot before? Name those things explicitly so you can reach for them intentionally rather than defaulting to whatever’s closest (e.g, doomscrolling, ruminating, extra glass of wine). Then identify thing from the menu you haven’t tried and are willing to try.

4. Practice Giving Yourself Grace at the Task Level

It’s easy to agree with “give yourself a break” in theory and then immediately hold yourself to impossible standards in practice. Instead, try applying grace at the task level. When a piece of writing is slower than you expected: grace. When a sales approach went awry: grace. When you miss a week then another of your newsletter: grace. For good measure, the 3-to-1 feedback ratio—three positives for every corrective insight—works internally as well as externally. Before you identify what to do differently next time, name three things that were good enough, intentional, or simply worked adequately.

5. Build Cushion into Your Business Timeline

A sustainable author business runs on realistic timelines. When you’re planning a project, a launch, or a season of work, add a buffer. Build in the week you’ll lose to a sick kid or a dead laptop or the creative drought that follows a crunch time. Cushion isn’t lowering your standards—it’s accounting honestly for the conditions under which you, and most humans, actually work. One practice worth trying: save yourself with a bell. Decide in advance when a work session ends, and stop when it does, even if you’re mid-sentence. The incomplete task creates a natural re-entry point the next day and keeps the work from metastasizing into all available time (Hemingway swore by this method).

6. Reframe Your Problems as the Journey

Ugh. I know, journey. But it’s not a journey. It’s the actual, real-life journey you’re on, in the middle of. When something in your author business feels like a problem—slow sales, a stuck manuscript, a marketing approach that isn’t clicking—ask first whether the problem is actually that you’re in the middle of a process you chose. The discomfort of uncertainty, iteration, and learning-as-you-go is not evidence that something is wrong. It’s what it feels like to be building something. This reframe doesn’t make the difficulty disappear, but it changes what you do with it. A journey you’re in the middle of calls for patience, adjustment, persistence, and focusing on what you’re creating. A problem calls for diagnosis and fixing. Know which one you’re actually in and err on the side of journey and creation.

7. Do the Work of Dismantling One Limiting Belief

We all carry at least one limiting belief that’s costing us real forward movement—usually something in the neighborhood of “I can’t sell,” “I’m really an entrepreneur,” “mega-success isn’t for people like me,” or “sitting behind an author table makes me feel like an animal on display” (more than one author has told me this with a straight/ disgusted face). These beliefs were installed earlier in life as adaptations, and they’ve been riding along ever since, more than occasionally seizing control. You don’t have to dismantle all of them at once. Pick one. Notice when it shows up. Trace where it came from. Thank it for its service (it was protecting you from something, once). Then practice a replacement thought that serves you better. This is not quick work, but it is some of the highest-value work an author-entrepreneur can do.

8. Stop Paying the Knowledge Tax

Pay for the help you need, or pay the tax. The knowledge tax—the cost of not knowing what to do, being stuck, flailing, and repeating the same approaches to get the same underwhelming results—is real, and it adds up. Costs to your mood and energy. Opportunity costs for what you’re missing. Lost income, lost growth, lost time. The tax accrues whether or not you’re aware you’re paying it. The alternative is investing your resources—time, money, attention—in the help that gets you from where you are to where you want to go. That investment might be as modest as thirty minutes with a LinkedIn group or a used book that answers the right question. But be honest with yourself: small investments are sometimes the right move, and sometimes they’re a way of playing at doing what’s necessary while avoiding the larger commitment that would actually move you. Whatever you want for your author business, someone has already figured out how to do it. Others are doing it. Ask yourself what you want, who knows what you need to know, and what it would take to access their help. Then invest there—and implement what you learn—rather than prolonging the confusion on the cheap.

9. Find Space for an Emotional Processing Practice

Author entrepreneurship can generate a particular flavor of emotional residue. Rejection that arrives on an otherwise good day, a comparison spiral that started from someone else’s announcement, the grief of a project that didn’t turn out the way you hoped, the loneliness of working alone, etc. are the kinds of things that can linger in our minds and bodies and accumulate. Without a practice for processing them, moving through them, returning you to your better self, they can resurface as procrastination, self-sabotage, the vague sense that none of it is worth it, even depression or illness if they’re too mighty and not attended to. Meditation. Journaling. A conversation with a trusted peer. The Sedona Method. A long walk. Use whatever thing or things work for you regularly, so that you can return to a workable center.

10. Build Your Author Enterprise with Actual Love

This is the pillar that asks the most of you philosophically, and it’s worth going deeper for…and considering what it means to build your author enterprise with love. Love as an active orientation toward your work, your readers, your business, and yourself. Could it mean choosing projects that most interest you (at least one person will always be pleased)? What about extending yourself the same grace you’d extend to a writer you admire who was temporarily struggling? Does it mean engaging with readers, with fellow authors, with the business of books, with real curiosity and care rather than transaction? A business built with love, appreciation, and care over time looks and feels different from one built from obligations, drudgery, resentments, and/or fear.

From Inner Game to Outer Circle

The seventh and final step of the Profitable Author Life You Love framework moves next to what the mindset work makes possible. Pillar 7 is about cultivating a flourishing and supportive network and relationships for your author business’s long haul—the peers, mentors, collaborators, customers, readers, vendors, and champions who become part of how your author career and business grow. A settled, grounded inner game is often the nutritious soil those connections take firm root in.

Tell Us in the Comments

Which of the ten items or the original eight mindset categories is calling you right now? What’s the one thing—one trick, one reframe, one practice—that’s made the most difference in your own inner game? What will you try next?

Leave a comment

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In my three years of writing here on Substack (450 articles and counting), I have never made a direct appeal such as this one, so I respectfully request that you read on.

If you read this Substack, The Profitable Author: Build a Business You Love, with any regularity—if something here has helped you think more clearly about your author business, prompted you to try something new, or simply reminded you that building a sustainable author life is possible and worth doing—I’d like to invite you to become a paid subscriber. Each and every single one of you.

Not because the revenue is critical to my business. It’s not, but I do personally believe in paying others for their work and value. I say that because it’s true, not to be snarky. You can see this attitude in everything I write because I want YOU and all authors to be paid for your work and your value. Writing these articles has only upped my commitment to authors: I now buy more books at full price than ever before because I know that the most important way to support authors is to buy their books, to pay them for their work!

But I also believe it matters that you make this commitment to yourself. Investing in what works is how anyone builds a business of any size or scope. You spend a little bit of money to make a lot more. I know because I have built multiple businesses and side projects in 30+ years and they all require belief plus the right information / eduction plus lots of commitment, trial and error, iteration, and ongoing refinement.

Every author I’ve worked with who has invested meaningfully in their author business—in effort, in experimentation, in coaching, in education, in the tools and communities that move them forward—has made that investment back. Not necessarily in a week’s time. But it does come back, and then some. Often multi-fold in less time than you could imagine. Authors who treat their writing life as a real business, who put real resources behind it, are the ones who build real results.

A paid subscription to this Substack is a small, concrete way of saying: I’m serious about this. I’m investing in myself and my author business. I’m not just reading—I’m applying what I’m learning so that I can build an income-generating, sustainable author business I love.

I write about things I know work. Observable, evidenced, proven approaches to author business-building that I’ve seen in action across decades of working with authors. I don’t recycle generic advice. When I make a recommendation for sales and marketing or business-building, it’s because I know it has a track record. When I write about a business philosophy or mindset, I likewise know that it’s a reframe or an understanding that can change things fundamentally, take you far.

NEW for paid subscribers: Monthly Zoom office hours where you can drop in for personal author business coaching—get the answers, advice, solutions, strategies, and brainstorming you need on the spot!

Whatever you invest here, I am confident you will make it back many times over—in clarity, in strategy, in income, in satisfactioin, in the author life you’re building.

If you become a paid subscriber and actively engage with the material for 90 days, and don’t feel you’ve gotten your investment back in value, clarity, or applicable ideas—email me and I’ll refund you. No argument, no hoops. I’m that confident in what’s here.

So, will you become a paid subscriber?

If the answer is “Yes, but...”—here are nine ways to get there for free or at a discount

• Ask for it as a gift. Put a paid subscription on your birthday or holiday wish list. The people who love you want to support what you’re building—give them something specific to do. Here’s the gift link!

• Ask your publisher or agent to pick up the tab. Your growth as an author-entrepreneur benefits them directly. A well-run, intentional author business means better sales, a stronger platform, and a more reliable creative partner tuned in to growth and opportunities. If you’re self-published, that argument applies to you too—this is a legitimate investment in your own publishing operation.

• Buy One Hour with a Publisher at the discounted rate and get a paid subscription free. Really. The normal One Hour with a Publisher rate is $300. Buy a founding subscription here for $250 and get full subscriber benefits and the one hour call. Start the new year with a strategic call that could change everything for your author business trajectory. Link here. A paid subscription also comes free for anyone participating in the Author’s Business Accelerator.

• Buy 3 copies of The Profitable Author: 1,001 Ways to Build a Business You Love Around Your Books as gifts and get one year free—for yourself and your gift recipients. You’ll be supporting fellow authors and your own education at the same time. Purchase here and drop me an email requesting the subscription for you AND the recipients of your book gifts.

• Get 2 friends to subscribe and get yours free. Refer two readers who become paid subscribers and I’ll comp your subscription. Email me (sharon at conspirecreative dot com) after they subscribe and I’ll activate your subscription.

• 10 restacks and 10 comments before the end of the year. Help grow this community through the end of December—10 restacks of any posts and 10 substantive comments left at the end of any posts—and earn a free year. Email me (sharon at conspirecreative dot com) when you’ve hit both marks.

• Make it back by applying what you learn. This one’s just a reminder: The strategies here are known to generate income. One idea implemented well can more than cover the cost of a year’s subscription.

• Write it off. A paid subscription to a publication directly supporting your author business is a legitimate Schedule C deduction. Your accountant can confirm, but the case is straightforward.

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What Comes with a Paid Subscription

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The investment is small. The guarantee removes the risk. And everything else—the clarity, the strategy, the author business you’re building—that’s on you. I’m just here to help. 😊❤️

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We’ve decided to center November’s Zoom Power Hour on an underrated resource that’s been free for anyone to use for years: the Author Business Obstacle Quiz.

(This follows a recent trend of returning attention to existing resources we’ve offered to authors all along.)

After 20+ years coaching hundreds of authors and publishers, Sharon has identified seven common obstacles that block authors from building sustainable businesses. The Author Business Obstacle Quiz is Sharon’s distillation of all those experiences, lessons, and observations into a five-minute diagnostic tool for authors.

The quiz pinpoints in just five minutes what aspect of your business is MOST holding you back.

If…

1. you’ve never explicitly tried figuring out what your biggest business obstacle was, or

2. you’d appreciate a comfortable outlet to receive personalized coaching from Sharon, or

3. you want to proactively engage with your number one blocker rather than hope it magically disappears

then this event is right up your alley.

Our Agenda

Each participant will take the Author Business Obstacle Quiz beforehand.

During the hour, based on your results, Sharon will give you personalized coaching. During this time, you will also get to hear other authors’ own pain-points and possible solutions to them.

This is a time for you to be a thermometer rather than a thermostat.

Time, Location, & RSVP

Time and date: November 19, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM CT

Location: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84962677284

Click the button below to RSVP:

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A paid subscription is $97 a year or $10 a month. If you read and apply what’s here, you should be able to make that back ten times over in no time without too much trouble—and a hundred times and more if you take this advice seriously. One volume sale you wouldn’t have thought to pursue. One speaking fee you learned to negotiate properly. One partnership you knew how to propose. One income stream you built because you finally understood how. Any one of those pays for years of this subscription.

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Booth events—book fairs, festivals, conferences, outdoor expos, library author fairs—are one of the most direct, immediate, and underestimated income opportunities in an author’s business. You set up a table, stand behind it for four to eight hours, chat up passersby, and sell books directly to people who came to buy books. Straightforward and simple.

These types of events comprise nearly the entire business model of some authors I know, including Kenneth Linde (author of the 15-book Waldwick series), who regularly sells 40–70 books at local library author fairs and seasonal church bazaars.

It’s so easy to undervalue and underperform at booth events, but once you crack the code for you, such events can underpin greater visibility, sales, and author business development. Here are snapshots of the six articles where I dove into what works.

Think Like a Pop-Up Retailer

Here’s a foundational reframe for every future booth event you do: You are a pop-up retailer. Not an author who happens to have books you fanned out on a table. A retailer with a display, a pricing strategy, a customer engagement approach, and an accounting practice.

The details in practice:

• Display. Approach your table like a department store window dresser. Add height, depth, dimension, and color. Bring a tablecloth and a branded banner. Consider gift-wrapped books (subliminal reminder for gift-giving occasions), a candy dish, bookmarks and postcards, flyers for upcoming events, and an email sign-up sheet. Location matters: aim for high-traffic, high-visibility spots near entrances, exits, food, or restrooms.

• Pricing. Experiment with incentive pricing—bundle deals, multi-copy discounts, rounded prices that make the math easy at the register. The experience of buying a signed book directly from its author is premium; you don’t always need to discount to make the sale.

• Program strategy. Build your talk to maximize book sales: make judicious use of content-dropping (“more on this in Chapter 17”), use deliberate calls to action with a captive audience, and develop content that makes people want to leave with “a piece of you.”

• Calls to action. Ask directly and specifically: buy a copy, buy one as a gift, donate one to a school library, grab an autographed copy for a nonprofit raffle. If you don’t believe in the value of your product enough to ask, how can you expect others to?

• Accounting. Track inventory, transactions, and income at every event. It’s the law, it’s data, and it’s how you measure and improve.

Main idea: Every little intentional component of your booth accumulates. Professionalize the experience the way any good retailer would—and treat your post-event review as seriously as your pre-event prep.

Newish Ideas Worth Stealing

A photo essay of booth marketing ideas captured at the 2024 Printers Row Lit Fest—things I hadn’t necessarily seen in these iterations before, collected for your inspiration.

The standouts:

• Find an original opener. Author and social psychologist Anne Beall held out a tub of folded affirmations: “Would you like an affirmation?” No author had ever said that to me at a book event before. Poet James Armstrong opened with “Do you want to know why Washington is floating in a pan of water?”—which is exactly the sort of thing a poet should do. Your opening line is your first micro-opportunity. Make it your own.

• Leave an impression. Thomas Edwards uses an embosser to imprint a Limited Edition Show Exclusive stamp in customer books, then pens in the name of the show where it was purchased. A signature plus a story about that moment.

• Provide direction. Rita Dragonette used signage to connect her earlier novel to a currently bestselling book on a similar theme—directing new attention rather than waiting for it. Thomas Thorson used hand-written notes and arrows (like those in social media posts) to tell visitors what to do: “Find me,” “Follow me,” “Crisp dialogue.”

• Try different pricing strategies. A military discount, a printing-cost bundle, a pay-what-you-want option—all seen at PRLF for the first time in thirty years of attendance.

• Take it up a notch. Potted orchids next to a tall banner. Embroidery patches for sale alongside a book. A multimedia booth with a photo-op egg and records to accompany the novels.

Main idea: You don’t necessarily need to reinvent every aspect of your booth wholesale. You need one or more unexpected touches that make you, your books, your table memorable.

The Face-to-Face Case Study

A guest post by Michael Haupt, author of Chicago Aviation Timeline

Michael Haupt was the top seller in our tent at Printers Row Lit Fest in 2025—sold more than many authors combined. His reflection on what made it his best year is pragmatic stuff we should all consider.

Two primary insights:

• Sales are made one-by-one. Every single sale is a significant event. The person who says “I’ll stop back later” sometimes does—but only if you’re there. Haupt learned the hard way that short shifts and early pack-ups cost him real sales. The ancillary time (loading, driving, setup, breakdown) is the same whether you work two hours or eight. Get the most out of it.

• Sales are made face-to-face. How you engage in that moment determines whether there’s a sale.

Two principles Haupt shares:

• Respect yourself. You are a published author. That is a big deal. Stop asking “might you possibly be interested?” Own what you’ve made and convey the opportunity it offers readers.

• Describe the book, not the category. “Alien-vampire romance” tells people the genre. “A story of an extraterrestrial explorer who falls in love with a human—and then becomes a vampire—and their struggle to reverse the curse” gives people something to see. The latter description isn’t forcing anything; it’s giving people information to make an informed decision.

And, a note on discounting:

• Haupt moved toward selling at cover price and was surprised by how little pushback he received. If someone is interested in the subject, a buck or two rarely stops them. Save the discount for the fence-sitter.

Main idea: If you’re going to do a booth event, be all in. Half-hearted efforts produce half-assed results. Work the whole event. The recovery day comes after.

Layer Everything

A strategic frame that ties all the other booth articles together. Don’t think of each book fair/tabling event as a one-off thing. Rather, it’s a compounding stack of micro-opportunities, each one nudging the probability of visibility, sales, connections, relationship, and future opportunities in your favor.

A welcoming smile might boost engagement by 15%. An appealing display, another 20%. A well-timed question when someone pauses, another 25%. A follow-up email the next day with a special offer, another 30%. None of these alone is the magic thing. All of them together are.

Categories worth layering at every booth event:

• Signage, display, branding. Catch their eye; increase the odds of stopping.

• Handouts. Send them home with something so they remember and can follow up.

• Sign-up sheets. Capture contact information for as many people as possible—QR codes and pen-on-paper both.

• How you show up. Be present. Serve everyone who stops as if they’re a paying client. Make every interaction positive, relevant, and useful for the other person.

• Other people’s booths. Visit them. Introduce yourself. Take photos. Follow up. Don’t pass up the chance to meet people in the industry you don’t yet know.

• Scripts. Prepare conversation openers. Test, vary, repeat what works.

• Data gathering. Ask questions that yield useful information. Document what you learn.

• Following up. Don’t end the connection with the event. Find a way to extend every new relationship into the future.

Main idea: There is no one magic thing. Build your compound advantage, one strategic choice at a time.

A Checklist That Can Carry You 30+ Years

After 30 years of attending Chicago’s Printers Row Lit Fest, this is the checklist I review and update after every event. It’s worth the price of a paid subscription on its own.

The major sections:

Before the Event (marketing plan, permits, goal-setting, weather monitoring, packing), Staff and Training (assignments, conversation openers, tone-setting, payment training), Day-Of Logistics (transportation, arrival time, weather check, equipment testing), Equipment and What to Pack (tent, table, chairs, inventory, display elements, miscellaneous supplies, personal items, weather-proofing), Programming (author appearances, hospitality plans, photo/video), Money Notes (bank, cash handling, payment forms), and Post-Mortem (accounting, mailing list additions, follow-up, analysis, planning for next year).

• List items that came with experience: nametags for staff; a first-aid kit; duct tape, packing tape, and Scotch tape; pre-stuffed bags with promo items; weather contingency plans communicated to the full team; and a morning welcome that sets the tone for the day with positivity and cheer.

• Most important note in the checklist: Eye-catching and creative displays are important, but they’re also not as important as authors and staff with good attitudes and a sense of customer service interacting with the public.

Main idea: Learning what does and doesn’t work, what does and doesn’t feel right for you and your brand, and upgrading your game from event to event—that’s what a custom checklist is for.

Field Notes from the Fair

A field report from the Berwyn Public Library’s 5th Annual Local Authors Fair—four hours of selling, observing, buying, and taking notes.

What I noticed about the authors who were doing it well: sophisticated, eye-catching displays; multiple titles, props, swag, and merch; nearly universally excellent covers; good outreach and savvy conversation with attendees.

Two things I hadn’t seen before and was surprised I hadn’t: Darnell Williams taking promo video of himself and his table for social (three decades of book fairs, first time I’d seen it); and Juanita Hernandez’s table, which had a children’s book alongside a related coloring book, thematic props, candy sticks with stuffed burros attached, bookmarks with Mexican art, and all of the above available as a bundle.

The two suggestions I’d give almost every author at almost every event:

• have an easy, obvious way to collect email addresses, and

• offer volume or bundled pricing to encourage multi-copy sales.

Business models on display: At nearly every table, an element of a larger author business model was evident—consulting and coaching services, editorial services, merch, multiple formats (paperback plus coloring book, paperback plus hardcover plus board book, paperback plus audiobook plus app-potential). The booth is not just a sales opportunity. It’s a window into everything else an author has built.

My own approach: I went in with the intention of making the most of every layer—talked to as many authors as possible, took notes, donated a book to the library’s Blind Date promotion, gave away unsold books to exhibiting authors with my Substack info, bought four books and traded for five others, collected email sign-ups, and emailed everyone I’d connected with the next business day. This article was part of that layering—written to mention the authors I met, then emailed to them and the library when published.

Main idea: A four-hour author fair can be optimized: It’s a data-gathering, relationship-building, content-generating, community-contributing opportunity. Approach it as such.

Common Themes

• Think retail, not author. Every article in this round-up returns to the same reframe: You are a pop-up retailer. The display, the pricing, the customer engagement, the inventory tracking—these are retail disciplines, and they matter.

• The whole event is an outreach opportunity. Sales at the table are one layer. The sign-ups, the conversations, the photos, the follow-up emails, the article you write afterward, the books you buy from other authors—all of it is outreach, compounding in real time.

• Face-to-face is the advantage. The thing a booth event gives you that no online channel can replicate is a live human being standing in front of your book, making a decision. Respect that moment. Engage it fully. Don’t squander it by sitting down, looking at your phone, or underselling what you’ve made.

• The 5% –10% more principle applies especially here. Arriving early. Staying until the last shopper leaves. Learning names. Taking a video at your table. Offering bundled pricing. Bringing a sign-up clipboard. Following up the next business day. None of these requires extraordinary talent or massive budget. Combined, they can separate the authors people remember from the ones they don’t.

• The post-mortem is part of the event. Every checklist, every accounting entry, every note about what to do differently next time—this is how booth events improve from event to event, year to year. Every event as data.

Where to Start

New to booth events or still finding your footing? Start with Event Book Sales to nail the retail mindset, then consult The Checklist before your next event.

Ready to level up a table that’s already working? Booth Marketing Ideas from PRLF and Field Notes from Berwyn will give you specific, actionable things to try.

Thinking about the strategy behind why booth events work and how to maximize every hour you spend at them? Everything Everywhere All at Once is your read.

And, if you want the mindset shift that might matter most: Best Book Fest Year Ever and Michael Haupt’s two foundational insights—sales are made one-by-one, and sales are made face-to-face.

Tell Us in the Comments

What has worked best at your booth tables? What things will you try next based on this article?

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If you’ve never had a free 30-minute strategy call with Sharon Woodhouse to discuss your author goals, challenges, business model, business opportunities, and strategic roadmap, scan below and pick a time that works for you. This is a no-strings, no-pressure call, but if I can help you further, I’ll take a couple minutes at the end to tell you how.

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Unless you’re doing everything yourself from scratch in a venue you own or don’t need permission for, every author event starts with a pitch.

Whether you’re proposing a workshop to a library, suggesting a partnership event to a local business, approaching a venue about a ticketed evening, or asking a conference to boo…

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You know I love a good author business model.

An income-generating sustainable author business model you love, built up piece by piece, as you go, based on the things you want and enjoy and what makes sense for you, your books, and your readers.

It’s possible. Not theoretically possible, but possible for you.

Some author business models are truly unique, l…

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Pillar 1 is knowing it’s possible.

Pillar 2 is committing to making it so.

Pillar 3 highlights customizing your author business to fit your life.

Pillar 4 is about the value of showing up for it every day with 5 promotional activities.

Pillar 5 is about learning business as you go.

The original Build Your Business Savvy As Y…

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Sales is a big and often foreboding topic for author businesses—big and scary enough that I’ve broken it into subcategories for this series.

This round-up is about approaches: the specific methods, challenges, frameworks, and techniques I’ve written about to help you implement sales conversations and campaigns. If you’re…

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There’s a phrase that predates social media, algorithms, and digital marketing by about a century: pounding the pavement. It meant getting out there to get work, a job, opportunities, sales, the business. Knocking on doors. Showing up in person with something to offer and the persistence to keep going until one person and…

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• Pillar 1 was about knowing it’s possible to have a sustainable, income-generating author life you love. Possible not in theory, but for you.

• Pillar 2 was about committing to the practice, process, and development of that life.

• Pillar 3 was about customizing your sales, marketing, and author business to fit your life.

• Pilla…

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Why Customers Deserve Their Own Archive Round-Up

Much author business and marketing advice conflates readers and customers—not distinguishing them and treating them as the same thing, to be pursued with the same tactics, success metrics identical.

But they’re not the same.

Readers read your books. They may or may not have pai…

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Welcome to the next author business challenge I want to put before you.

Last time, I challenged you to pick three types of retail customers, make ten contacts to each, and spend one week generating real data about where your highest-leverage sales opportunities actually are.

This challenge is bigger and has a longer timeline. And if you do it, it will ch…

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Pillar 1: Knowing it’s possible.

Pillar 2: Deciding to do it.

Pillar 3? Pillar 3 is about making it your own.

The original “Customize to Fit Your Life” article introduced eight dimensions of customization—from your personal strengths to your current life and schedule—that help you build an author business model that actual…

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Almost guaranteed, there will something in this photo essay from this year’s Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago (Sept 12 & 13) that will inspire your book marketing or an upgrade for your next festival booth.

First, my articles from past years:

2024

2025

Summ…

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We’re doing something different with our free monthly Beyond the Margins Zoom Power Hour in October.

No guest expert.

No presentation slides.

Just you, your author business, a bingo card, and the possibility of winning one of four $25 gift cards—while taking notes on business actions you might want to test out or implement before the year is up.

Beyond the Margins Presents: Author Business Tick-or-Treat Bingo

When: Thursday, October 15, 2026, 1:00–2:00 PM CDT
Where: Zoom — join here
Cost: Free

RSVP here and receive your bingo card by email.

Here’s How It Works

Sign up and you’ll receive your bingo card by email before the event. It’s numbered like a classic 75-square bingo card.

During the session, we’ll call numbers at random and reveal what author business practice it represents. IF you do or have done that item, THEN you can cover that square. (Print out your bingo card so you can easily cross things off.)

As we go, we’ll talk through what each practice means, how/why authors may be using it, what it looks like when it’s working, and what to do first if you’re new to the concept.

Four winners will each take home a $25 gift card.

Why Bingo?

Just because it’s fun. It’s not a quiz. It’s not a checklist.

It’s an honest and lively assessment of what you’ve done and what you can still do in 2026 and beyond. It’s a collection of options you can evaluate when thinking about what you’re eager to try and what your author business needs next.

While October can feel like a winding down, we have two and a half real months left in the year. Still enough time to make meaningful choices and new plans for your author business.

Play bingo with us and get ready to finish the year strong!

Who This Is For

Our monthly Zoom calls are for all authors—aspiring, new, or established; fiction or nonfiction; traditionally, hybrid-, or self-published. Whether you write literary fiction, hairy hockey romance, scholarly nonfiction, memoirs, cookbooks, children’s books, or paranormal dinosaur comics—if you’re building an author business and want to finish 2026 with momentum, this session is for you.

Our events are never recorded. Show up live—for yourself, for the surprises, and for the gift card you might win.

See you October 15!

Sharon Woodhouse
Conspire Creative | Beyond the Margins

RSVP and get your bingo card.

Tell us in the comments

What author business practice do you most want to evaluate or implement before the end of the year? What would make 2026 finish strong for you?

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The last time Sharon wrote about her Author Business Model Worksheet was over a year ago. It’s been available all this time for free (or “pay what you want”) on Gumroad, and as of recently, is now updated and upgraded — and still free!

What’s New

The Author Business Model Worksheet (ABMW) helps you understand your sources of author income, plan ahead, and make smarter decisions about how you earn.

The original version of the ABMW guided authors through fifteen author income types. Each type had a tab with three pre-formatted tables:

1. a table with sample figures,

2. a table for inputting estimated figures, and

3. a third for your actual income figures.

Each tab was wired up to show you your total annual income for that type and, in the “Summary” tab, your total annual income across all fifteen income types.

The worksheet helps authors…

• realize that there are many types of income they (likely) haven’t explored yet, and

• see in concrete terms whether their income figures match their expectations and goals.

In this way, the ABMW helps you build, refine, and tweak an author business model according to your goals and circumstances.

The upgraded version still does that, and more. It features two new tabs, one for the sixteenth and seventeenth income types Sharon has written about since the original release:

1. Investing, and

2. Background and passive income.

On top of that, all the supplementary information is updated, the document was made easier to read, and each tab now links to the income type article associated with it.

Who It’s For

The Author Business Model Worksheet is a twenty-one-tab spreadsheet for those who want a clearer, more intentional path to spotting gaps and opportunities in their approach to income.

This worksheet is for those who…

• Want a clear, accurate, and at-a-glance picture of their annual income.

• Need inspiration for different ways to generate income from their author business.

• May not realize that there are many income types they may be overlooking.

• Dream of crafting a business model aligned with their professional and personal goals.

Download anytime and for free on Gumroad: https://conspirecreative.gumroad.com/l/author-business-model-worksheet.

Subscribe and Make This Back 10 Times Over

Here’s what I know after 30 years in publishing and coaching: the authors who build sustainable, income-generating businesses around their books are the ones who consistently apply good strategic thinking to their specific situation. That’s what this Substack delivers—week after week, article after article, across 450+ pieces in the archive.

A paid subscription is $97 a year or $10 a month. If you read and apply what’s here, you should be able to make that back ten times over in no time without too much trouble—and a hundred times and more if you take this advice seriously. One volume sale you wouldn’t have thought to pursue. One speaking fee you learned to negotiate properly. One partnership you knew how to propose. One income stream you built because you finally understood how. Any one of those pays for years of this subscription.

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Why Self-Discovery Belongs in an Author Business Archive

Yes, I write about strategy, income streams, business models, marketing frameworks, and the other things I’ve observed that have actually worked for the hundreds of authors I’ve known, met, worked with over the years. But there’s a reason that Upping Your Mindset Game is one of the 7 pillars of the Profitable Author Life framework. Practically speaking, I have seen no author conquer author business roulette without tending to what’s going on inside them.

That can mean a lot of things but it doesn’t necessarily mean self-improvement or fixing yourself—therapy of sorts before business can get underway. However, it does almost always mean sticking with self-discovery. Getting clearer about who you are, where you are, what you want, what energizes and drains you, what your body and instincts already know that your conscious mind hasn’t caught up to yet.

This kind of exploration and clarity does provide a solid foundation on which to build. You can absorb and implement every tactical tool in the archive and still not get where you want if you’re building toward someone else’s definition of success, measuring yourself against the wrong things, or ignoring what your own signals are calling out.

Here’s a summary of everything I’ve written on self-discovery for authors. You can go on to read the ones that most capture your attention or get the gist from each main idea.

Know What You Want—Write It Down

Short, potent, and worth returning to whenever you need a jolt. Sci-fi maestro Octavia Butler wrote herself specific, audacious notes about her vision: I shall be a bestselling author. This is my life. So be it. The article asks you a simple question: What are your audacious goals and plans? Your vision for your author life? Have you written it down?

Main idea: Writing down your vision for your author life—specifically, boldly, and without hedging—is the first act of taking it seriously.

Six Tools for Finding Out Who You Are

Clinical psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson offers six tools of self-discovery from her book Who You Were Meant to Be—and they translate beautifully to author business decisions. The tools: energy shifts (what energizes or drains you in your author work), recognition (the “I could do that, and better” feeling when you encounter others’ work), envy (quiet honest recognition about what you want), appeal and attraction (what draws your eyes and your enthusiasm), physical response (what your body says yes or no to), and mental response (what nourishes versus drains your thinking).

Gibson’s important caveat: anxiety and fear are knee-jerk reactions, not reliable tools of self-understanding. For authors who use discomfort as justification for avoiding outreach, events, and other commercial activities, take note.

Main idea: Your body and instincts are collecting data about who you are, what matters to you, and where you’re “meant” to go next. These six tools help you read it.

Ask Your Body—Then Sleep on It

For every 11 million sensory inputs our body records, we’re consciously aware of about 40. Which means our bodies know an enormous amount that our conscious minds haven’t yet processed. That includes answers to questions we think we don’t know how to answer for ourselves.

This article is a practical invitation: identify what you want to know, ask your body for insight, then sleep on it or meditate on it and listen. Your subconscious has been absorbing information about your author world and options for it for years. Give it a job before you go to sleep and see what it delivers.

Main idea: Your body is a vast repository of absorbed knowledge and instinct. Ask it questions. It often has answers that your conscious mind has yet to surface.

What You Want Matters—And Barbara Sher Knew It in 1979

Before Instagram coaches and six-figure gurus, there was Barbara Sher—a struggling single mom in New York who became one of the most practical and generous voices in the self-help space. Her 1979 book Wishcraft is still brilliant.

Key points for authors: Know what you actually want—not what seems realistic, but what you truly want. Stop waiting to fix yourself first; getting what you want requires know-how and support, not self-improvement. Your wants are not frivolous—they’re essential. Toxic individualism (thinking you have to do everything alone) is the enemy (“who, not how!”). What you need is structure and support, and Sher shows you how to build both.

Main idea: What you want for your author life is not a luxury. It’s information about who you are. Stop suppressing it and start creating in that direction—with the right structure and support.

Living Magnificently: Tolstoy’s Checklist

Brief, warm, and worth the two minutes. Tolstoy: “One can live magnificently in this world, if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one’s work.”

The article expands the Tolstoy quote into four questions for authors: Do you know how to work? Do you know how to love? Do you love your work? Do you work for someone you love—readers, learners, people in your field?

Main idea: The author business you build is most sustainable when it’s organized around work you love, done for people you care about serving.

Measure Backward, Not Forward

One of the most practically useful mindset articles in the archive. Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy’s concept in their book, The Gap and The Gain, maps perfectly onto something I’ve been teaching authors for years as “right, right now.”

The Gap: measuring yourself against a moving ideal and where you feel you’re inadequate; The Gain: measuring yourself against where you started…years ago as well as this morning. Same facts, completely different relationship to those facts. “I sold 2,000 copies of my new book in the last six months!” versus “I only sold 2,000 copies so far.” “I already have 500 email subscribers who want to hear from me regularly” versus “I only have 500 subscribers and real authors have over ten thousand.”

This article includes specific reframes for common author Gap statements, a 3-to-1 ratio practice for continuous improvement without self-sabotage, and the case for strategically lowering the bar until you’ve cleared it—not as settling, but as operating from confidence rather than shortfall.

Main idea: Stop measuring yourself against ever-changing ideals. Measure backward against where you started. The Gain is where sustainable author business momentum gains ground.

Your Future Self Is Already Waiting

This article applies Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s scaffold for future-self thinking to author businesses: Treat your future self as a genuinely different person and make decisions that serve them well. Let your goals pull you forward rather than your past push you around. A strong connection with your future self improves your present decisions.

It includes other practical applications for authors: 10x your goals (getting on 10 podcasts requires roughly the same thinking as getting on 1, once you know how); invest courage and resources in the direction of what you actually want; identify your top three priorities and use them as a filter for all decisions; eliminate lesser goals or make them milestones; and ask directly and specifically for what you want—your future author self depends on your willingness to do so.

Main idea: Who you want to become as an author should drive your present decisions more than who you’ve been in the past. Build toward your future author self deliberately, starting now.

Don’t You Come to the Ocean With a Teaspoon

Self-discovery about what you want is only useful if you’re willing to ask for it. Jim Rohn’s three points (click through to see the hilarious video): asking is the beginning of receiving; the problem isn’t receiving, it’s failure to ask; and don’t come to the ocean with a teaspoon—ask bigger, more specifically, more often. His kicker: Good working is less important than good asking. You can outwork everyone in the room and still lose to the person who simply asks better.

Main idea: Knowing what you want is step one. Asking for it—directly, specifically, without apology—is the beginning of making it happen.

It’s Not a Coach’s Job to Want More for You Than You Want for Yourself

The ethical heart of what’s happening here. A coach who wants more for a client than the client wants for themselves has stopped coaching and started imposing. What this Substack can do: expand your vision of what’s possible and give you the tools to pursue it. What it cannot do: want it for you, do it for you, or take you further than you’re willing to go.

This article is a good one to read when you’re asking why 460+ articles aren’t working for you. The honest answer is usually that this repository of articles can only do as much as you’re willing to do with it.

Main idea: The most important self-discovery question isn’t What’s possible? it’s What do I actually want?

The Commonalities

Reading across all nine of these articles, here are some common themes:

• Self-knowledge is not a luxury or a detour. It’s the foundation of all the decisions and steps that go into creating an income-generating sustainable author business you love. Without self-knowledge, you’re optimizing for goals that aren’t yours, measuring yourself against benchmarks that don’t serve you, copying off the papers of other authors, and building something that won’t grab you enough to stay in the game.

• Your body and instincts are underused resources. There are Lindsay C. Gibson’s six tools, the sleep-on-it practice, the attention to style and desire of the original fairy godmother of coaching, Barbra Sher, and more. Their message: Tune in to body, mind, heart: you already know more than you think you do. Pay attention to these conduits.

• What you specifically want matters. Octavia Butler wrote down what she wanted. Hardy says to ten times what you want. Sher says your desires aren’t frivolous, they’re essential knowledge. Tolstoy says build your work around love. Collectively they make the argument for taking your own dreams and wants seriously enough to precisely name, then giving yourself permission to pursue them without apology.

• Measure where you’ve come from, not where you’re not yet, not where you think you should be, nor where other people are. These negatives are “The Gap,” and they keep you in a perpetual deficit. “The Gain” keeps you in motion, focused on your own game and your own wins. And there are only wins in this schema. Right, right now isn’t lowering your standards—it’s building and operating from reality instead of fantasy.

Asking is where self-discovery meets the world. Knowing what you want is internal. Asking for it is how it becomes manifest. Per Rohn, don’t do all this self-discovery work only to show up at the ocean with a teaspoon.

Where to Start

If you’re new to this cluster of ideas, start with You’re Measuring Your Author Business Against the Wrong Thing—the Gap and Gain framework is the most immediately applicable and the most likely to shift something in how you’re currently running your author business.

To go deeper on who you are and how that affects your author work and business, spend time with Lindsay C. Gibson’s six tools and Barbara Sher’s Wishcraft.

For a jolt of audacious vision, read the Octavia Butler piece and try writing your own version afterward.

Finally, if you know what you want but continue to not ask for it, Jim Rohn is your next read.

Tell Us in the Comments

Which of these articles or ideas is most relevant to where you are right now? Is there self-discovery work you’ve been avoiding? What would change in your author business if you tackled that?

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The Event Triangle

Mostly we think about our author events in two dimensions: author + venue.

Sometimes it’s even more limited: Me, the author + a specific bookstore. When this pairing doesn’t sizzle for our anointed store, enter the hidden dimensions of woe and pity.

To expand your thinking and generate perhaps more exciting, compelling event options to propose, use the concept of the “Event Triangle.” It’s nothing fancy BUT the name is dull! It’s merely a simple brainstorming framework that popped into my head while biking the Chicago lakefront last week:

1. Take yourself as the author,

2. Add one more element, and

3. Place the combination of 1 & 2 somewhere interesting or at least fitting (that could very well be your local bookstore).

The “one more element” sandwiched between author and venue is where the creativity pops—and where events can go from ordinary to fabulous.

The triangle formula looks like this:

You (Author) + One More Element + Location = An Event Worth Attending

Here are four versions of the triangle, each with its own logic, its own examples, and its own set of tips for making it work.

Triangle 1: Tis the Season

Author + Seasonal Theme + Location

Seasons, holidays, and calendar highlights give people a built-in reason to gather…and a built-in context for your books. The seasonal hook isn’t just calendar-driven decoration. It could be the difference between someone intending to attend your event, but letting it slide, and someone actually showing up and feeling festive about it. Holiday season happenings also encourage people to bring a friend or two to celebrate with them.

Examples:

• A cookbook author presents a Summer stone fruit cooking demonstration at a local kitchen supply store, with recipes from her book, samples to taste, and someone from the farmer’s market selling half bushels from the back of his truck.

• A mystery author throws a Whodunnit Halloween escapade at a neighborhood bar, with a mini-live mystery, book sales, and themed beverages.

• A gardening author creates a spring seed swap at a local nursery, where attendees bring seeds to trade and leave with an autographed copy of their book as well.

• A children’s book author hosts a back-to-school story hour at an independent bookstore in late August, with activities, a reading, and book bundles for classroom donations.

• A history author rings in new year’s day at a local historic site on January 1st, reframing the city’s history through the lens of famous new year’s moments.

Top Tips:

• Book seasonal events 3–4 months in advance. Venues fill up fast around holidays and seasons. This also gives you ample time to plan your PR, social, and newsletter efforts.

• Tie your seasonal hook directly to content in your book, not only to the calendar. A category like “Winter” is where you hunt for ideas; “the best cold-weather recipes in my book” is a hook.

• Price the event to include a book. A seasonal experience that also sends attendees home with a signed copy justifies a higher ticket price.

• Partner with a business that already owns particular seasonal moments—a florist for spring/Easter/Mother’s Day, a chocolatier for Valentine’s Day, a costume shop/apple orchard/pumpkin patch for Halloween.

• Create a recurring annual event around the same seasonal hook. Year two is easier to plan and draws people back.

Triangle 2: A Collection of Authors

Author + Other Authors + Location

Two authors are more interesting than one. Three are a panel. Four are a festival. Bringing other authors into your event doubles, triples, or quadruples the draw, splits the promotional work, and creates the kind of energy, mirth, and unexpected conversation that send audiences home smiling.

Examples:

• Three mystery authors host a crime and cocktails evening at a local bar—each reads a short passage, then the group takes questions, and audience members guess the ingredients in a specially concocted “mystery” drink. The person closest to the real recipe wins a free book from every author.

• Two nonfiction authors on adjacent topics (say, personal finance and career development) co-host a “Get Your Life Together!” workshop at a coworking space, with books available from both.

• A group of five local authors hosts a book-themed progressive dining event—attendees move from one author’s home or business partner location to another over the course of an evening, sampling food and literary excerpts as they go.

• Four romance authors partner for a Valentine’s Day speed dating extravaganza at an independent bookstore or local eatery, with romance/dating tips from their books and Q&A.

• Four children’s book authors who write for different ages host a family reading night at a library, each offering reading and back-to-school advice for the grade levels they know best.

Top Tips:

• Choose co-authors whose books are complementary, not competing—adjacent topics or genres that share a readership with less chance of cannibalizing each other’s sales.

• Divide responsibilities clearly from the start: who handles venue logistics, who handles promotion, who manages ticket sales, who brings what.

• Pool your mailing lists for promotion—this is the primary business value of author collectives and shouldn’t be an afterthought. Also decide in advance on follow-up (how will you thank the venue, how will you reach out to attendees, what will be posted on social, etc.).

• Build in a group dynamic that’s truly entertaining and/or thoughtful. For example, a panel with prepared questions is more engaging than authors taking turns reading at each other and the crowd.

• Consider formalizing the collective for repeat events—a standing group of 4–6 authors who rotate hosting duties quarterly is a sustainable model .

Triangle 3: Let Them Have Food and Drink

Author + Food or Drink Element + Location

Food and drink lower social barriers, encourage folks to attend with others, increase how long people linger, and give events a sensory quality that book signings alone can’t match. They also make events more shareable—people photograph what they eat and drink before they photograph what they read, BookTok aside.

Examples:

• A novelist joins with an Ethiopian restaurant for a tastes of Addis Ababa dinner event, with a talk about her book set in Ethiopia, traditional food, and signed books available for purchase or included with the meal.

• A wine book author produces a ticketed evening with wine pairings matched to chapters from his book at a local wine bar.

• A children’s author with a book about a little girl who loves baking finds a local bakery for a Saturday morning event for families, during which kids decorate cookies during the reading.

• A wellness author hosts a “Mocktail and Mindfulness” evening at a yoga studio, with non-alcoholic wellness drinks, a talk from her book, a 30-minute yoga session, and a book included in the ticket price.

• A noir fiction author based in New Orleans partners with a cocktail bar for a “Dark and Stormy Stories” evening (better yet…series!)—the bartender creates three original mini-cocktails named after characters in the book, each served at a special price while the author reads corresponding scenes. Attendees vote on their favorite drink and their favorite character.

Top Tips:

• Build the food or drink piece into the ticket price. “Includes two drinks and a signed book” is perhaps a bigger draw (unfortunately) than: “books available for purchase.”

• Connect the food or drink to your book’s content specifically—themed cocktails, food referenced in the book, cuisine from the setting. The connection goes further than a grocery store cheese plate.

• Partner with the food or drink provider rather than renting their space. Make it win-win (income and visibility for both of you) and work-work (you each do promotion and handle some of the logistics).

• Keep logistics simple. Passed appetizers are easier to manage than a sit-down dinner. Fewer moving parts means fewer things that can go wrong.

• Photograph everything and share it. Food and drink events generate the most shareable event content of any author event format.

Triangle 4: Add-an-Expert

Author + Complementary Expert + Location

This is the least used triangle and the one I’m most excited to propose to you. It’s the addition of an expert who can speak to a different dimension of your book’s topic—a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant, an historian, an educator, an academic, a genealogist, an architect, an interior designer, a travel agent. This raises the value of your event in a new way, brings in someone who likely is not selling books at the event (no immediate competition for dollars), and opens your book to a whole new audience: theirs!

The expert has their own following, their own credibility, and their own reasons to promote the event. You get access to all of that and they get a platform, a new audience at no charge, and an interesting conversation partner. The audience gets two experts for the price of one ticket.

Examples:

• A personal finance author for freelancers invites a CPA who specializes in self-employed clients for a “Taxes and Your Creative Business” evening at the library. The CPA answers tax questions; the author addresses the business model questions underneath them. The author sells books and the CPA finds new clients.

• A true crime author partners with a criminal defense attorney for a conversation at a local bar about crime on the page vs. crime in the courtroom, exploring how real criminal law compares to what gets written about in crime fiction.

• A memoirist who writes about surviving cancer teams up with an oncology nurse for a panel on the patient experience at a hospital community event, with the hospital purchasing a book for every patient in attendance.

• A historical fiction author with books set in 1920s Los Angeles has a local historian join them for a “Fact and Fiction” evening at a historical society. He reads passages from the book and the historian unpacks what’s history and what’s invented.

• A parenting book author collaborates with a child psychologist for a workshop at a preschool on recent research findings, with the psychologist addressing the science behind the parenting approaches in the book.

Top Tips:

• Choose experts whose subject area naturally illuminates your books, someone whose knowledge can bring new layers of richness and understanding for the reader/audience.

• Brief your expert thoroughly before the event. They need to understand your book, the crowd, and the format well enough to make the event feel seamless.

• Structure the event around dialogue and interaction rather than side-by-side presentations.

• Promote to both audiences explicitly. The event information should make clear why both the author’s readers and the expert’s followers would want to attend.

• Let the expert sell their services or expertise at the event. If they feel they’re getting real value from the collaboration, they’ll promote it harder and come back for future events.

Your Turn: Build Your Own Triangles

The Event Triangle works for any author at any stage—you don’t need a big platform, a publicist, or a production budget. You need a book, an idea for the second element, and a location willing to host.

Start with what you already have. What seasonal moment is coming up in the next three months? Which author in your community writes something adjacent to your work? What food, drink, or experience does your book naturally suggest? Who has expertise in a topic your book touches that you could invite into conversation?

Can you think of other triangles? Adding in a “regional” element or a “niche” element are two that immediately come to mind. A regional element might be a local landmark, neighborhood organization, or tourism hook. A niche element could be a hobby community, professional association, or fan subculture that overlaps with your book’s subject matter.

For you: Start with one triangle. Create one event and see what happens.

Tell Us in the Comments

Which of the four triangles feels most natural for your books and your situation? Have you already done an event that fits one of these patterns? Is there an event you’ve been meaning to plan that the triangle framework just made a little more possible?

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My latest series focuses on reviewing my seven-pillar framework for creating a sustainable, income-generating author life and business you love by looking at ten ways to apply each pillar to your specific author situation—to refine and solidify your own structure and bring you closer to your vision of author success.

Pillar 1 was about knowing it’s possible. Pillar 2 is about committing to your author business vision.

The original “Make the Commitment” article introduced the deceptively simple idea that building a sustainable author business requires a real commitment—not a vague intention, not a wish, not an “I’ll try,” but a considered, concerted, come-hell-or-highwater decision to treat your author work as a business and an effort that’s worth it to you.

Like the other pillars of my framework, I didn’t throw this in because it sounds right. I included it because I observed its reality (or absence) in the lives and outcomes of the hundreds of authors I’ve worked with across my career.

But commitment can be easier to declare than to sustain. Here are ten ways to engage with Pillar 2 and make it work for you.

1. Clarify your commitment.

Before you can keep a commitment, you have to have a solid idea of what you want and what you’re committing to. “I’m going to build my author business” is a good start, but it’s a direction not a commitment. A commitment is specific:

• I’m committing to spending ten hours a week on my author business for the next three months.

• I’m committing to reaching out to fifteen potential retail partners this quarter.

• I’m committing to finishing my book marketing plan before the end of the month.

• I’m committing to building an author business I love until (and after) I’m making a full time income of $x annually from it.

Write it down. Make it specific enough that you’ll know whether or not you’re honoring it.

2. Know your why—and your whys.

A commitment without a compelling why can be fragile. When things get hard—and they will—a why can carry you through. A why can remind you of your vision. Why are you building this author business? Why does it matter to you? Why is now the time to commit?

You can also go deeper than your first answer. Your first why (“I want to make money from my books”) may have a second why underneath it (“because I want to write full-time”), and a even a third (fourth or fifth) why underneath that (“because I want to spend my days doing work that matters to me that I enjoy”), and then another (“because I’ve spent too much time ignoring these things in my life and I’m not getting any younger”). The deeper your whys, the more durable and vivid the commitment.

Trace your whys back as far as you can, then write them down. Return to them for sustenance when your commitment wanes.

3. Understand responsibility—the coaching concept.

In professional coaching, responsibility means something specific: you are the author of your own outcomes. Not the market. Not your publisher. Not the algorithm. Not your family obligations or your day job or the economy. You.

Don’t take this to be about blame—it’s actually about power. If circumstances are responsible for your results, you’re powerless. If you are responsible, you have agency, you are empowered. You can make choices that change outcomes. Fully embracing responsibility for your author business is one of the most liberating things you can do.

Review the responsibility article from my series on the 28 big ideas from coaching to support your author business.

4. Understand accountability—another coaching concept.

Where responsibility is internal, accountability is external. It’s what happens when you make your commitment visible. That can mean visible to others or an accountability partner, or visible to yourself through systems and structures you implement for that purpose.

Review the accountability article from my series on the 28 big ideas from coaching and create an accountability plan for yourself.

5. Post your commitment.

Make it physical. Write your commitment on a sticky note, on your screensaver, on a fine piece of stationery that you decorate with colored markers and glitter. Make it visible somewhere you’ll see it every day. Somewhere so that when you see it, you can be reminded. It will make you nod, smile, groan, acknowledge begrudgingly, dig your heels in, recognize as true for you.

What we see repeatedly becomes harder to ignore…and easier to act on.

6. When you’re stuck, invoke your commitment.

When you hit resistance—whether it’s the outreach email you can’t bring yourself to write, much less send; the event you keep talking yourself out of proposing; the price increase you keep postponing—stop and invoke your commitment explicitly. Say it out loud if you have to: I am committed to building a sustainable, income-generating author business I love. This is part of building that business. I can do it and I am doing it.

Commitment is more than a feeling. It’s a decision you can call on when needed.

7. Catch yourself in the middle of a committed action.

This one is subtle and underrated: Notice yourself keeping your commitment in real time. You sent outreach emails to a dozen potential volume sales buyers. You showed up at the author fair with flair and a willingness to engage the public. You finished the chapter and edited it the next day. You made the pitch to the reporter you met last week. You raised the price of your speaking program to match your expertise and time involvement. In the moment, pause and acknowledge it—internally, if not out loud: I am doing what I said I would do. I am doing what’s necessary to build the author business I envision and want.

The brain learns from what it notices and this is reinforcement. Noticing yourself keeping your commitment makes future committed action more likely.

8. Build your commitment into your calendar.

Block specific time each week—30 minutes a day; 10 hours a week for marketing; three hours every weekend morning—dedicated to your author business. Label it something that reminds you of the commitment: “Author Business,” “Results-Oriented Marketing,” “Leaving My Day Job,” or whatever.

Having a calendar commitment makes the bigger commitment concrete, visible, and harder to rationalize away. It also makes it easier to protect that time when competing things arise. Sorry, I can’t—I have something scheduled is a complete sentence, a proper no, and true. Your schedule, your priorities, your dreams are real commitments for which you can decline other invitations.

9. Revisit and renew your commitment regularly.

Commitments can erode quietly over time without maintenance and reflection. Build in a regular check-in—monthly, quarterly, at the start of each new project—where you consciously bring yourself back to your commitment for reaffirmation, adjustment, or recommitment. Ask yourself: Am I still committed to this? Has my specific commitment evolved in some way? Does it still reflect what I actually want?

A commitment you renew deliberately is stronger than one you made once and hope to remember. A commitment you consciously adjust is more honest and more sustainable than one you gradually relinquish because it stopped fitting your life.

10. Plan ahead for when you lapse.

You will lapse. I do believe in you, but you will lapse. That’s not pessimism—it’s head-on acknowledgment of reality. Planning for those times it will happen distinguishes authors who recover quickly from those who let a lapse become a fast, slurping spiral down the drain.

Before you need it, before it happens, decide: When I fall off this commitment—because I will at some point—what’s my re-entry plan? Actions that could get me back in motion? A specific numbers of hours or days before I return to it? A mantra I tell myself? A person I contact? Keep a list of ways that will work for you to get back on the wagon.

The plan doesn’t prevent (or cause!) lapses. It prevents any lapse from becoming permanent.

Pillar 2 is where Pillar 1 becomes real. Knowing it’s possible pumps you up to get started. Making the commitment gets you moving. Consider the ten approaches above a toolkit for supporting that commitment. Use what fits, adapt what almost fits, and return to this list when your commitment needs shoring up.

Next up: Pillar 3—Customize to Fit Your Life.

Tell Us in the Comments

What does your author business commitment actually look like right now—is it specific and written down, or more of a vague intention? What would change if you made it explicit? What’s your re-entry plan for the next time you lapse?

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Commitment Is Easier to Keep When Someone Else Knows About It

Making a real commitment to your author business—specific, written down, rooted in your deepest whys—is Pillar 2 of the framework. Keeping it is where most authors need support. My Author’s Business Accelerator is designed for published authors ready to move from vague intention to genuine, sustained commitment. In eight sessions (with a flexible schedule to work around your life), we’ll clarify exactly what you’re committing to, build the accountability structures that make commitment visible and durable, identify the hard parts where your commitment is most likely to flag, and develop your re-entry plan before you need it. Not group coaching or generic advice—it’s a strategic partnership that treats your commitment as real, because it is. Learn more about the Author’s Business Accelerator.

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A paid subscription is $97 a year or $10 a month. If you read and apply what’s here, you should be able to make that back ten times over in no time without too much trouble—and a hundred times and more if you take this advice seriously. One volume sale you wouldn’t have thought to pursue. One speaking fee you learned to negotiate properly. One partnership you knew how to propose. One income stream you built because you finally understood how. Any one of those pays for years of this subscription.

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Welcome to a new kind of article in this Substack.

Over 450 articles into building this archive, I’ve noticed that some of the most useful content gets buried. It was written months or years ago, is still entirely relevant, but it naturally becomes invisible to newer readers and easy to forget for longtime ones. So I’m starting a series of round-up articles that organizes the archive by theme: pulling together everything I’ve written on a subject, distilling the main ideas, and pointing you to the full articles for when you want more depth.

We start with solopreneurship—the art and practice of building a one-person author business on your own terms, with your own resources, around your own books and expertise.

Why Solopreneurship—and Why Now

I’ve been writing about the Human Preference Economy here—a market preference for things made by, delivered by, and experienced with real humans, growing parallel to an economy dominated by AI and algorithms. Its three pillars are authenticity, experience, and meaning. And one of its most important expressions is what some are calling the micropreneur moment: an outcropping of this economic bifurcation that brings new attention and new opportunity to small, human-based businesses.

Solopreneur authors are, almost by definition, perfectly positioned for this development. We are not content factories. We are individual humans with specific knowledge, specific voices, and the ability to create meaning and real experiences for a specific community of readers. The solopreneur author enterprise is therefore a business model the economy is moving toward and making space for.

So, what exactly is a solopreneur author? You may think it’s someone who’s self-published. No. It’s anyone who has decided—or is deciding—and I hope that’s all of you—to treat their author work as a business they own and operate, with income streams, strategies, and systems they build and control. You may work alone or with a small team of part-time contractors or employees. You may be full-time or creating something on the side. What defines you as a solopreneur is the business orientation—not a hobby, not just a “career”—and the fact that you are running it yourself, doing most if not all of the work.

Here’s everything I’ve written so far on solopreneurship.

Start Here: The Business Mindset

The counterintuitive reality is that small author businesses need rigorous business thinking more than large ones do, not less. When margins are thin and resources are limited, amateur thinking is a luxury you can’t afford. This article makes the case for treating your author business like a business from day one—regardless of current revenue.

• Main idea: Amateur thinking is a luxury only big businesses can afford. Start thinking like a business owner now.

Build Faster: Shortcuts That Work

Eight ways to save time, money, and effort while reaching your income goals faster. This article is for authors who want to build strategically rather than through pure trial and error—leveraging what others have already figured out instead of starting from scratch.

• Main idea: You don’t have to figure everything out alone or in sequence. There are faster paths.

Resilience: Building and Rebuilding

After a kid, after a concussion, during Covid—three very different disruptions, the same process of rebuilding business each time. This personal case study explores what it actually takes to rebuild a solopreneur author business after major life or circumstantial interruptions, and what stays constant across those reinventions.

• Main idea: Rebuilding is a skill. The same principles that build a business the first time rebuild it a second, third, or fourth time.

A Specific Model: The Local Knowledge Business

One of the most detailed and practical articles in the archive. If you have deep knowledge of a place—its history, culture, food, architecture, people—you have the makings for a sustainable solopreneur business. This article lays out seven income streams (writing, speaking, workshops, tours, products, consulting, sponsorships) and six pillars of success for building a regional-based enterprise.

• Main idea: Local knowledge is an underutilized business asset. Seven income streams and six success pillars show you how to develop it.

A Specific Model: The Freelance for Small Business Author

Authors have skills small businesses desperately need—writing, editing, content creation, marketing communications. This article shows how to position those skills as freelance services for the small business market, which is enormous, underserved, and consistently willing to pay for quality help.

• Main idea: Your author skills are worth more than your books alone. 30.7 million small businesses are potential clients.

A Real Example: One Author’s Formula

Chicago author Greg Borzo has published ten books—all with traditional publishers, all on Chicago subjects he loves—and built a sustainable author enterprise around them through ruthless simplification, mission-driven marketing, strategic outreach, and nourishing publisher relationships. His formula won’t work for everyone (he has no website and no social media; he accepts no credit cards), but the spirit of it is universally applicable.

• Main idea: Find the four or five things that anchor your author enterprise and build around those, eliminating the rest.

The Commonalities

Reading across all six of these articles, several principles appear consistently:

• Business thinking is non-negotiable. Regardless of scale, solopreneur authors who treat their work as a business—with real pricing, real systems, real outreach strategies—outperform those who don’t.

• Multiple income streams beat single-source dependence. Every model in this collection involves more than one way of generating income from the same expertise, platform, and body of work.

• Simplification and focus are competitive advantages. Greg Borzo’s ruthless simplification. The local knowledge business’s focus on a specific place. The freelance author’s focus on a specific client type. Knowing what you’re building and what you’re not building is as important as knowing what to do.

• Start where you are. Every article in this collection starts from the premise that you can begin with what you currently have—your books, your knowledge, your connections, your location—and build from there.

• Outreach creates opportunities; waiting doesn’t. Whether it’s pitching local media, proposing partnerships, walking into bookstores, or reaching out to small business owners, the solopreneur authors who build sustainable enterprises are the ones who make things happen rather than hoping things happen to them.

Where to Start

• If you’re new to thinking about your author work as a solopreneur enterprise, start with Your $10K Author Business Needs Business Thinking. It establishes the foundational mindset.

• If you’re looking for a specific business model to explore, go to A Local Knowledge Business or How Authors Can Freelance with Small Businesses depending on which fits your situation better.

• If you’re rebuilding after a disruption, How I Rebuilt a Full-Time Business Three Different Times is written specifically for you.

• And if you want to see what a fully developed, long-running solopreneur author enterprise actually looks like in practice, spend time with An Author Formula of His Own.

Tell Us in the Comments

What about the solopreneurship themes resonates most with where you are right now? Are you building for the first time, rebuilding after a disruption, or refining something that’s already working? What’s the one thing standing between you and the author enterprise you want?

Leave a comment

Subscribe and Make This Back 10 Times Over

Here’s what I know after 30 years in publishing and coaching: the authors who build sustainable, income-generating businesses around their books are the ones who consistently apply good strategic thinking to their specific situation. That’s what this Substack delivers—week after week, article after article, across 450+ pieces in the archive.

A paid subscription is $97 a year or $10 a month. If you read and apply what’s here, you should be able to make that back ten times over in no time without too much trouble—and a hundred times and more if you take this advice seriously. One volume sale you wouldn’t have thought to pursue. One speaking fee you learned to negotiate properly. One partnership you knew how to propose. One income stream you built because you finally understood how. Any one of those pays for years of this subscription.

Subscribe now