Writing Books for Rapid Release, With Carissa Andrews — Self-Publishing Conference Highlight

In this Self-Publishing Conference Highlight, Carissa Andrews discusses writing books for rapid release. Having a sustainable author career that’s both fulfilling and profitable means setting yourself up for success from the start. All too often, however, our mindset hinders us from writing the first book, let alone prepare us for our long-term author goals. We’re about to change all of that! Andrews will show you how deliberately mapping out four books a year can transform your author career, your income, and your life!

This is a post from SelfPubCon (The Self-Publishing Advice Conference), an online author event, run free twice-yearly, in association with the Alliance of Independent Authors.

Find more author advice, tips and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center: https://selfpublishingadvice.org, with a huge archive of nearly 2,000 blog posts, and a handy search box to find key info on the topic you need.

And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at http://allianceindependentauthors.org.

Listen to Carissa Andrews: Writing Books for Rapid Release

Read the Transcript for Carissa Andrews: Writing Books for Rapid Release

Carissa Andrews: Welcome everybody to Writing Books for Rapid Release – The Prolific Author Mindset. I am going to be your host for today. My name is Carissa Andrews, and I am so excited that you're here today.

So, for those of you who don't know much about me, my name is Carissa Andrews, like I said, and I am the CEO and founder of Author Revolution. We're an online academy that teaches indie authors, just like you, how to have a prolific author mindset and to create a sustainable lifelong career that they love. I am also the host of the Author Revolution Podcast; you may be able to tell by my presentation voice here. Don't worry, it won't always be like this.

But I am also just like you. I'm an indie author with more than 17 books published, and the majority of them done in the past four years. Kid you not. So, everything that I'm going to be teaching you today is really coming from a place of true admiration and love, because it is not only what I teach, but it's what I do.

All right. So, today we're going to be talking about the journey to prolific authorhood. Now, it is a journey I'm going to tell you that.

So, let's start off at the very beginning. Of course, we start out with that ridiculously awesome book idea. I know you, it came into your head, fell out of the sky, it was downloaded, I don't know, whatever, however it managed to make it to you. It is now here, and you know it's going to be the best thing ever.

You are going to be now on your path to becoming the next JK Rowling or Stephanie Meyer, or Stephen King, whatever your genre is who is the biggest guru, you are that person, and this book is going to be the thing.

So, you get fast to work. You do all this stuff when it comes to writing it and getting it all prepped, mastering everything, and you finally go ahead and publish that ridiculously awesome book. And it's fantastic. Your people all come to you, and they are excited to buy it and they are purchasing it left, right and centre; your mom, your grandma, your aunt, your best-friend's landlord's sister, whoever, they're all purchasing it in support of you, and it is absolutely the most tremendous time ever.

And then things start to dwindle. You realize that maybe you don't know as many people as you thought you knew. And all of a sudden you realize that you do need more awesome readers into your world in order to create the sustainable lifelong career you're trying to accomplish with this book, right?

So, then next what happens is you start tinkering, you do the thing, you're trying to figure out all the different ways to make sure your book is optimized for the best sales ever. You adjust your cover. Maybe you adjust your book blurb. Maybe you start learning Amazon ads or Facebook ads or BookBub ads. Whatever the case is, you start tinkering and learning it all, because you know everybody needs to read this book. It's like the next Twilight, right? It's the next Harry Potter. They have to read it.

But at the end of the day, we realize the only way to really make a sustainable impact in our author career, and in what we do as authors, is to ultimately just publish and write more awesome books, right? That is our goal. That's the entire journey, because let's face it, that first part feels like the longest part of our journey, and then we realize it's a repeatable cycle.

So, when it comes to this, your mindset is super important. So, let's talk a little bit about that prolific author mindset. Now, here's the thing, if you don't already know this it might come to a shock, but 99% of us are not going to have a living, or make a living or have a career, out of one book. We're just not going to do it. The majority of us are not unicorns who are able to be a one hit wonder, and quite honestly, I don't think many of us really want that either. We want to create a career that is continuable, something that we are able to do over and over again and repeatable, and we don't want all of that stuff resting on one book's shoulders anyway. We want to have eggs in baskets and be able to do more.

So, here's the truth. If you want to make a career out of your writing, did you know that six-figure authors, on average, have 28 books in their backlist. 28, no joke. That's a lot of books. So, if you're sitting there with one book, two books, 10 books, even, and you're wondering why you're not making a living, this might be your biggest aha moment of today.

Now, here's the thing, authors who are earning $60,000 a year, which is a pretty decent living, right? They have 22 books, 22. So, if you're not there yet, if you're not earning your income, you know, that you're doing from your full-time job or whatever, keep going, because I'm telling you right now, you have this spanse of books that has to be written in order to really make an impact.

Now, yes, you could be a unicorn. Maybe you can do it in five books. Maybe you could do it in 10 books, but maybe, because it's an average, is 30 books, but whatever the case might be for you, the goal is to know where that sweet spot is, so that you can start working toward it, which is what the whole prolific author mindset and rapid releasing is all about.

All right. So, this obviously leaves you with two choices. You can get either completely disheartened and decide you're just going to give up because, oh my gosh, how are you ever going to get to 22 to 28 books? Or of course you can strategy up, which is what this session here today is all about. So, I'm hoping you know which one I'm all about, and I'm hoping you're going to join me on this journey, so let's keep going.

All right. So, obviously publishing's a long game. It's not something that is going to be a quick fix. You're not going to earn those Mugu bucks right out of the gate, as much as we all, in the interim, in the initial phases of our publishing career, we all think we're going to do, it doesn't happen, unfortunately.

So, we have to treat it like a long game. We have to look at our long goals and our plans in order to get from where we are now to where we want to be. Obviously, that's going to become the goal of publishing more books. We know that in order to market saturate, in order to be seen, in order for our books to be known, and in order for readers to come to us, we have to be in the market for a while and we have to publish more books. We have to prove to our audience that we're not that one hit wonder, that we are here to stay, and that we want to give them that entertainment value that they're looking for.

So, you have to start with devising your strategy to get there. You need to figure out, how are you going to go from point A to point B in order to write those books, in order to reach those readers, all that stuff is part of your mindset. You have to look at it as that long-term goal and set those goals in order to reach them.

Now your mindset truly is going to be what makes or breaks this entire thing. It's going to be the thing that determines whether or not you're successful, whether or not you're able to move forward. Remember the quote, “whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.” because no matter what you do going forward, your mindset is truly the thing that's going to keep you there. It's going to keep you stuck, or it's going to keep you pushing forward to do more. So, I have a question for you. When you think of a prolific author, what do they look like?

Interesting question, isn't it? Now, are they someone that publishes every single month, in your eyes? Is it someone who publishes four or more times a year, or is it someone who just, you know, is able to publish every single year, they're consistent and they're trying to get things out there; maybe they're not as fast as everybody else, but they're doing the job?

Do you have a guess? Write it down. Let's see if you're right.

You ready? Here it is. The truth is a prolific author can be all of those things. Every single one. What really matters is consistency. Making sure that they are going forward. They're not staying stuck in the past. They're not staying stuck in a book that maybe isn't selling or isn't working, because let's face it, not all books sell, not all books sell well, and so we have to look at things in a way that is allowing us to keep moving forward. So, as long as you're doing that, and as long as you are meeting your reader expectations, you're golden. So, your audience is tailored to you. You train them on what to expect from you, and if you want to be publishing a book a month, you can. If you want to be doing four a year, you can. Or if your goal really is just to write one really great well-researched novel every single year, you can. It's still being prolific, as long as you are still stacking up that list of books into your backlist and moving forward. The goal really is to decide for yourself, what do you want your author career to look like?

And no, before we get started, you do not have to have that Type A personality either. I know there are a few of you out there who are thinking, okay, I can't write books quickly, I can't rapid release. I can't, I can't. There's a lot of, I can’ts, but no, you don't have to have that Type A personality in order to be prolific. I know many authors who are not, in fact many of us, most of us I would even claim, are kind of a hot mess at times. I know I certainly am, and I know many of my students, and many of my author friends who are as well. So, if this is you, you're in the right place, keep waiting, keep listening, you're going to keep getting there. Trust me.

Now, am I saying that even lazy authors, authors who don't want to write non-stop can be prolific? Well emphatically, yes, I am saying that. You can be the kind of author you want to be and still be prolific. You can still get your backlist going. You can still become the person and the author you want to be as long as you're moving forward. Do you see a theme going on here? It's all about letting go of things that are holding you in place and keeping you stuck, because let's face it, perseverance is your number one keyword. It's what I want you to hold onto.

You need to be able to persevere no matter what, because let's look at it, prolific authors, they don't get distracted by perfectionism. Oh, did I just hear a pin drop? Perfectionism is keeping you stuck. I have done so many podcasts about this. I've written an entire book about mindset on author imposter syndrome, which by the way is another one. You need to be able to look at your job, your creation, your product, and know when to cut it loose, know when to let it go. You don't get stuck with perfectionism. You don't get stuck when imposter syndrome crops up and you start feeling like, what if I can't do this? What if I'm no good? Imposter syndrome, by the way there are like five different archetypes, will keep you stuck because it's trying to keep you safe.

Imposter syndrome actually occurs for people who are high achievers, did you know that? Now high achievers notice different nuances, they know what they're not good at. They know what they could be improving upon. They know what could be better, but your readers don't care. Your readers just want your story, and so when we're judging ourselves and listening to that imposter in the back of our heads, we're actually allowing that part of our brain, which is our subconscious mind, to keep us stuck and safe, because that's really, it's job. Your subconscious mind is trying to keep you safe from doing something that feels like it could be dangerous or harmful to you, and really ultimately in this day and age, the only thing it could harm is your ego. So, let it go. What if you did tremendously well?

Alright, prolific authors also put on blinders to their haters, because let's face it, as you grow in your authorhood, as you grow in exposure, you're going to have haters, you're not going to be able to appease every single person out there. Your job is to write the story, write it well, and keep your readers happy. The readers who love you, the readers who know what you're all about and the readers who enjoy your stories.

And prolific authors also know they have to keep pushing forward and keep going with their plan. Yes, there has to be a plan in place, because it keeps you focused and it keeps you moving forward, and that's what we want for you. We want to become prolific, and you can't do that by the seat of your pants, really. You can't do it without at least knowing you have that goal. You can't do it without trying to strive for something.

All right. So, let's talk about this prolific author plan a bit, shall we?

Because everyone has one, and in order to become prolific, in order to do it in a way that is quicker than every couple of years, every few times, I don't know, whatever your job is when it comes to writing your books, sometimes we have a tendency to put ourselves on the back burner, so we have to have that plan to move forward.

Now, here's the thing, prolific authors treat their entire author business like a business, and the reason they do that is because it keeps them focused, it keeps them moving forward. Now, like I said, prolific authors know that they need that structure. They need to be able to know when they're going to be publishing. They need to know how they're going to publish. They need to know if they're going wide or if they're staying exclusive, they have to know when they're supposed to be writing a book when they're supposed to be marketing a book. When they have to talk to a cover designer. All of these things are repeatable, and they all happen over and over again, but they have to have a plan in place to make it happen.

Of course, they need an editorial calendar. So, that means knowing in advance how many books you're going to write, how many books do you want to publish each and every year? Can you put your pre-orders up there so that authors, or so that your readers, not your authors, well, maybe your author friends too, so that they're aware that your books are coming? They need to have that structure in place so that it keeps them accountable, and it keeps the readers in the know, because it gives them that clear guideline on what's happening and how it's going to go down.

Then obviously they set those goals, the big goals, the small goals, the monetary goals, the word count goals, the daily goals. They have goals and they stick to them, and you don't have to have like a bazillion different things going on in your head. It doesn't have to be like 900 different goals. Your main goal could just be, I'm going to publish four books a year. Boom, that's your goal. Then you just work back and try and make it into those manageable bite-sized chunks. How do you do that big goal? By looking at the smaller ones, and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute.

But there are literally four phases that an author can come back to time and time again. It doesn't matter how many times they're doing this thing. It doesn't matter how many books they've written. It doesn't matter how long it's been between books. This whole cycle is the same, no matter what. And there are four phases.

The first phase is obviously planning the book. You need to know what you're writing. You need to know when you're writing it. You need to know if it's a series or if it's going to be standalone books. You need all those details in place, and you need to set some time aside to sit down and try to figure out what it is you want to do.

Is it going to be that series, which I do actually recommend, or is it going to be something that you're going to plan out one book, and then you're going to move on to the next one? That's up to you. The only person that can make that decision is you, and so you have to set aside that time to plan and do the thing to make all those goals happen.

Phase two is obviously writing the book. It's getting those words on the page. It's making all of those things happen, and then talking to your editors, talking to your beta readers, making any adjustments to the manuscript, the actual thing that you're trying to produce and getting all that stuff taken care of.

Phase three is all about publishing. It's literally just the act of setting it up in your dashboards, whether it's wide, if you're doing like Draft2Digital, or if you're being exclusive to Amazon, or if you are going to your individual stores, like Barnes & Noble and Kobo and Google Play and Apple, whatever, it's setting all those dashboards up and getting them ready to publish. It's the actual act of hitting that button and going, and to be perfectly frank, it's probably the easiest part of this entire set of phases.

Because phase number four is promoting it. As soon as it's published, your job as an author now becomes being its cheerleader, making sure people know about that ridiculously awesome book, and making sure people are reading it and getting aware of it. And you're publishing more books, so you're letting them know about the things that are coming down the pike. You're bringing them into your world and making sure that they know how to experience everything properly.

So, for the prolific author though, we know that everything works in tandem. Everything is part of a cycle that just kind of rotates around. We, as an example, make sure that we're doing almost all of these things all at once. And it can seem a little daunting at first but let me give you an example. I am currently, as it stands, writing my third book of this year, my second book just published last month, and I have obviously more books in the back that I'm promoting, whatever.

So, I've gone through three phases. I'm also planning out for 2022 and thinking about, okay, what do I want to write in the next year? Do I want to write more in fiction? Do I want to write more in non-fiction? What am I going to be doing as this new year comes forward? Because you have to always be thinking about all those things as you're moving forward.

But it doesn't have to be like, literally at the same time, it's just that when you're doing the thing, you can be thinking about other aspects of it. You can be writing your book, then when you're finished with your chapter or whatever for the day, go, okay, what marketing aspects do I need to do for today? What social media stuff, whatever? And then on Monday, I know I'm going to plan for 2022. Whatever the case might be, it's always, there's this balancing act, there's this juggling act, of knowing when each part of it has to be in place.

But the cool thing is the more times you do it, the more it becomes second nature. Think about the job that you started, and you had no idea how the systems worked, and now that you've been there for however many years, you could recite the book of standards and everything that's supposed to happen by heart, without ever even looking at the book. It's the same here.

All right. So, in order to get to that magical zone of 22 to 28 books, obviously we'll want to get there quicker, right? We don't necessarily want to wait 22 to 23 to 28 to 30 years to get that number of books. So, what we recommend is rapid releasing. Now, does rapid releasing mean having to publish a book a month? Oh, such a good question. So, if I had my way, the answer would be no, absolutely not, don't do it, but I'm going to tell you why. This way, in my personal experience, seeing it from myself trying to do it, seeing it from my students, my co-authors, my authors, my friends, it leads to complete and utter overwhelm and burnout. You crash and burn my friend, when you are doing nothing but focusing on trying to get that list up and running. And to be perfectly honest, I think your creativity will start to suffer. It won't in the beginning, especially if you're on that high of publishing and the endorphins are going and dopamine hits are hitting and everything's going really well. But the problem is. At some point, your body's going to be like, you know, what? Enough, enough. So, instead, and it's not just that, it's actually, it's not sustainable. It isn't a type of career option that will keep you moving forward in a way that you can do it forever. It's a short-term burst, and if it's something you want to do short term, I'm all for it. But if you want a career out of this, if you know that this is going to be something you're going to do from the start, why not set yourself up to do it properly, right from the beginning. Why not set yourself up in a way that feels good and doesn't feel like you're going to absolutely go up in flames.

So instead, what I teach inside of my course, Rapid Release Roadmap, is to focus on four books every single year, rather than doing a bazillion of them, rather than doing, you know, even two of them, we've got four and it's for a reason. Now, you can do this a couple of different ways. You can either publish quarterly, which is something that I actually really recommend. It's something that I've worked, I've worked on both of these, but it creates less stress in your daily routine. It creates less stress in your publishing situation, and it's just a little bit easier. And you can also save them all up. You can write them all up in the front and then rapid release them a month apart at the end of it, or in the beginning of it, whenever during the year you want to do it. Both of them are going to work, but it doesn't necessarily mean everyone should do it that way.

Now, for example, with the publishing quarterly thing, if you wanted less stress, that's great because it's not about the launches that are the focus. It's more about your routine. It's more about your lifestyle. And it's more about knowing that your books are evergreen and knowing that the launch part of it is just a simple little part of your overall strategy, because let's face it, your books are going to be out there for a long time. You don't want to hinge every dollar on just that first week, that first month, you know that there's a bigger play going on. But if you do want to leverage yourself, you want to get into those bestseller charts. You want more exposure in Amazon's algorithms, for example, rapid releasing them a month apart is a great way to do that, and it can be part of your mindset and your strategy, but you have to know which one means the most to you. And that's something that I teach inside of Rapid Release Roadmap, which like I said, is my online course about all of this.

Now, more than that though, four books, why four? Why did we pick four? Well, it has a proven track record, obviously for building that momentum.

So, look at it this way. In year one, you've obviously got four books. By year two, you've got eight. By the end of year three, you've got 12 books. So, think about it this way, six years on, and you have your 24 books, you're in that golden Goldilocks zone, so to speak. You've got the number of books you need in order to make this happen. How cool is that? Six years!

Now, I don't know how many jobs you've been in, but I don't know many that you can start as an intern and work your way up to, let's say, six figure CEO in six years, do you?

So, consider it your proven promotion highway to the top. This can bring you all the way from the bottom, all the way to the top very quickly, and six years is not long guys, it really isn't. I mean, my son is six years old and I'm like, blink of an eye, I don't even know how he's going into first grade, what in the heck just happened? Six years is totally doable, and it is something that is just absolutely incredible if you let it.

Now, in addition to that, four is a proven number for series growth, and series are where I recommend starting for shore when it comes to building that career. Now, it's doable whether you are full-time, whether you are part-time, this is a number of books that, if you have that system in place, you're able to function, write, be creative, publish those books, over and over again, and you don't have to worry about burning out and not being able to do it.

I can tell you this from experience as well, because I have clients, I have a business that I'm running, and then in addition, I'm also writing. So, all of these things work together. And then on top of it, I have five kids. So, if I can do it, trust me, you can do it too. Plus, this number creates a balanced flow for the rest of your life.

Now, let's say you're working that full-time job and your writing gets the point where it is paying for your career. You no longer have to work that job and you quit. Well, you're in a balanced flow of writing those four books already. Now, yes, you could step it up and write more if that's what you feel called to do, but here's a challenge for you.

Four books a year is building new momentum. It's creating that pathway to being incredibly prolific, and it's still gifting you the ability to have a life, we're in this, we're writing for ourselves, we're trying to have our books and our writing become the thing that pays our bills, but we want it in a way that brings us freedom too, right? We don't want to be a slave to our computer. We don't want to be a slave to our creativity, because where's the fun in that? We want this thing to be something that is fun and enjoyable, and the second you try to ramp it up and try to do more, it creates an imbalance flow. It's where the overwhelm and burnout we were talking about starts to happen, and it's also where the creativity dries up. So, four books has been proven to be a great number to be able to continue, whether you are working full time or whether you are finally able to do the four books full-time.

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is this. It's a big one, so hopefully you're ready.

It's to plan out your next four books, because if you haven't done it yet, what are you waiting for? You have four books in you, I know you do. All of us do, that's why we're authors. We have all these crazy great ideas. So, your job right now, this coming weekend, is to sit down and think about, what do you want to write? What kind of aspects of books do you want to pull from? What type of stories do you want to put together? What kind of characters have been chattering away at your mind? Do you have a book or a series that you're already working on? Whatever the case might be, your job, your goal right now, is to sit down and plan out those next four books.

Now, here's what I want you to do. You need to decide, is it going to be part of a series, which is obviously what I recommend, or is it going to be a set of standalone books? Whatever the case might be, there's no right or wrong answer. The goal really is to just make sure that you're getting the four books mapped out to the best of your ability.

Then I want you to decide, if it's going to be a series, will it be a finite arc? So, for example, four books that are going to go across the span of those four books and then end, or are they going to be a standalone series where each book has its own thing, but it's part of a bigger, larger world, think Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys, that sort of thing. Or is it going to be a never-ending series arc where your characters are more like the series with a finite arc, where the books and the stories all kind of intertwine, so you have to read one book in order to know what the next book is, but it continues onward. Almost like, think of Supernatural, the TV show, that sort of thing, where every book kind of keeps going, and in order to really understand what the heck is going on in season 12, for example, you probably wanted to go through that whole journey with the brothers, right? That's what I'm talking about.

Then finally, I want you to think about how many words are you going to aim for, for each book? Because a lot of authors don't think that through, they just start writing and they kind of let it go, but I want you to aim for something. And the reason we do this is to keep us accountable and it keeps us moving forward in a way that gives us some concrete numbers. Our brains, as much as we hate math, we love numbers. We love things that are quantifiable. We love to know what we're aiming for and put it into tangible terms. So, most books are averaging between 60,000 words and about 80,000 words, in most genres. Yes, there are some where you can do less. Yes, there are some that you can do more, but the bulk of them are usually right in that sweet spot of 60,000 to 80,000 words. So, what I teach in Rapid Release Roadmap is that we aim for that 60,000 words, and we're going to do it in a way that helps us do it in six weeks.

So, that brings us to, how fast you want to write that book? You need to have a goal, because let's face it, Parkinson's law says that work is going to expand or contract based on what time is allotted for it. So, if you say, I want to write this book and you don't give it a deadline, it's going to take a while. But if you say, I'm going to write this book, it's going to be 60,000 words and I'm going to do it in six weeks, now your brain has to figure out how exactly is that going to happen? How am I going to make this goal in this timeframe a reality? By the way, like I said, six weeks in sprints is what we actually recommend inside of Rapid Release Roadmap, and we do that as a team, as a crew, and there's a lot of fun stuff that goes on during those sprints.

Now, how many days then do you want to write each week? Your goal isn't to be writing every single day, in my personal opinion. Your goal is to write because you love it, and you want this thing to be the most incredible experience that you can have. So, you don't want to be a slave to your laptop or your computer. You want to be the author who gets to do this fun thing whenever they want, and they still get time off, they still get to do things and have fun with their family and go on road trips, whatever. So, figure out how many words and how many days you need to write each week.

So, let's give you an example for this. So, let's take that 60,000 words in six weeks plan. That means that you're going to be writing 10,000 words each week. Now, that gives you a lot of play, because think about it, you could write 10,000 words in a single day, if you really wanted to. And then the rest of the week, you just chill out. Hey, if you can do it, go for it. But let's say you want to do five days a week. So, now that means you're going to be writing 2,000 words every single day, in those five days that you plan out, and guess what happens? When you have that wiggle room, when you have two days where you're like, I'm going to take two days off, if something happens in the middle of the week, someone gets sick or your job goes crazy, or it just slips your mind, whatever, things come up. Now, all of a sudden you have a little more wiggle room. Now, you know, okay, well, I didn't write on Tuesday like I said, I was going to do it. So, I guess I'm going to have to write my 2000 words on Saturday, whatever. You know that you can go from, 10,000 words is your pot, that's what has to whittle down, and so you just have to find time, in little spots of time, to make that happen during your week.

Okay, so that's great. Now you have a plan, now you know what has to happen. You're able to ask yourself some really serious and powerful questions that can get you from newbie author, maybe, baby author, whatever, to being a prolific author with that mindset of creating that sustainable lifelong awesome career. When are you going to start? Are you going to start today? Are you going to start tomorrow? Are you going to start next week? When? I want you to think about that.

And while you're thinking about that, I'm actually going to let you in on a secret. You're actually invited, and this worked out really well, it wasn't planned so know this wasn't originally going to be a part of this journey, but I have a three-day, Plan Your Series challenge that's starting on Monday, October 25th. So, if you are looking for more guidance and a little bit more help into getting your series planned out for 2022, or even starting it here in October, or with the November NaNoWriMo, this is a great place to really dig in and get some insights and inspiration. The last time we held this three-day challenge, we had over 200 participants. It was incredible. The energy, the excitement, people getting into all the stuff that we're digging into in this three-day challenge, which is obviously a lot more than I can deliver here in this little session.

But I want you to think about it. I want you to think about how you are going to continue your journey and make sure you are completing this prolific author plan and putting it in play.

So, remember prolific authors trust the process. They know there is a process in the first place. They know that the thing is repeatable. They know that they can circle back to it, and they know that they can keep going. If a book launch fails, oh well, work on another one. If a book signing falls through, oh well, they know that there's going to be more coming down the way. If your ads aren't working, you know that you can tweak it. There's always something that can be worked on, but they know that ultimately the biggest thing that's going to keep us going, the biggest thing that's going to earn us that career, and those royalties, is to trust the process and keep going back to those four stages, four phases of planning, writing, publishing, and promoting, year after year.

Now, I do hope you've enjoyed this presentation, and if you would like to follow me further, you are more than welcome to. You can go to authorrevolution.org if you want to check out more about what I do at my company. You can obviously go to rapidreleaseroadmap.com, which is my online course, it's the signature course that helps indie authors, just like you, plan, write, publish, and promote those four books a year.

But if you're just looking for some support and some help with your indie author mindset and learning some of the tips and tricks that are being handed out right now in the author community, head over to Author Revolutions podcast, it can be found on all the podcast platforms that are out there, so it really doesn't matter which one you choose, but just hang out with me for a while, listen to what is going on and get a feel for how I teach and what's happening in our awesome author community.

Well guys, thank you so much for being a part of this today. This is the entire brain dump of everything that I know when it comes to having a prolific author mindset.

And I want you to have the most successful, sustainable life-long author career possible. And I want you to do it in a way that just doesn't lead to burnout and doesn't lead to creativity drying up and doesn't lead to all that frustration and overwhelm that I think is so rampant in our indie author communities right now, because we're trying to do too many things all at once. There's something like 24 hats, guys. That's a lot. So, instead I want you to think about where you're going. I want you to make a plan for it, and then go forth and start your author revolution.