Before 2016, writing my books was just a hobby. It was something I did when I had time, or when the mood struck me, or when I was able to get around to it.
And that’s why I continued to have hobbyist results.
My books weren’t a priority. They were a one day, a some day, an if I have time for it kind of thing.
The only problem was, I knew since the age of 11 that I was meant to be an author–of both fiction and nonfiction. I always knew that. I just hadn’t been living it fully up ’til that point.
And so I decided to go all in.
I committed myself to writing and publishing nine new books that year. (That may sound insane, but I don’t write your typical 300-page books. My books are concise, specific, and to the point, so they end up being on the shorter side, which allows me to write more of them faster.)
So I took off on this adventure called “write and publish nine books in one year,” and what a journey it was! I ended up writing nine books that year and publishing seven of them–five on Amazon and two as freebies on my website.
That year, I not only wrote and published the most books I ever had, but I also sold the most books I ever had AND made the most money from my books that I ever had. It was all pretty awesome.
When I look back at that journey, the biggest thing that stuck out was the shift I made in my MINDSET and in my IDENTITY.
Before 2016, I saw myself as a hobbyist writer and I acted like one, even though I already had four books published by that point! My mindset was still one of “when I get around to it.”
Once I decided to make the shift from thinking like and seeing myself as a hobbyist to thinking like and seeing myself as a pro author, that’s when everything changed for me.
That’s when it became easy (most days!) to show up to the page and put words on it. That’s when my habit of writing every day became automatic. That’s when I started consistently selling books every month.
That’s when my books started hitting #1 in my category on Amazon. That’s when I became a bestselling author multiple times. That’s when I learned what it really took to market and sell a book.
And not a moment before.