Insert Yourself at Any Point and for Any Reason into the Author Game
There’s no right time, no perfect entry point, and no such thing as doing it wrong
Here’s what can stop many an author from building their businesses: They’re waiting for the right moment, the right level of readiness, the right credentials, the right platform size. They think there’s a proper sequence—first this, then that, eventually the other thing. They’re looking for the instruction manual, the home screen with a giant arrow. Start here.
There is no manual. There is no right time. There is no proper order of things. You can insert yourself into the author business game at any point, for any reason, in any order. You’re the author of your own story—your author business story included. You decide when to start, where to start, and how to start. Trust yourself and jump in.
Trust Yourself
You know more than you think you do. You’ve read books, observed other authors, worked your day job, lived your life in a business-and-marketing saturated culture. That’s more than enough to start. You don’t need another pep talk, another round of taking the temperature, another certification, another year of learning the ropes. You need to make decisions and see what happens. All successful authors and business people started from a place of not knowing everything. They trusted themselves anyway. The business savvy you’re waiting to acquire? You build it by doing, not by studying. You’re the author of your business story. Write the next chapter by taking action now, from wherever you are, with whatever you know.
FOMO? Go for It
Fear of missing out gets dismissed as shallow anxiety, but sometimes FOMO is actually a good instinct. You see someone doing something interesting with their author business and think I want that, I should try that. Yes, try it. You hear about a revenue stream and wonder if it could work for you? Yes, test it. You notice an opportunity and feel the pull? Yes, follow it. FOMO isn’t always late-night partying distraction—sometimes it’s your intuition pointing toward possibility. If something calls to you, that’s reason enough to explore it. You can always pivot. But you can’t pivot from a standstill.
FAFO? Why Not
Ef around and find out. Sometimes the best business education is trying something to see what happens. Produce the thing you’re not sure about. Pitch the partnership that feels ambitious. Experiment with the pricing model that seems too simple or too bold. Make the offer you think might be too niche. The worst case is you learn what doesn’t work—valuable data for what does. The best case is it works better than you imagined and you have a new anchor in your author business model. Either way, or at any point in between, you’re building your business through action, not theory. FAFO doesn’t have to mean reckless—it’s a solid way to discover what actually works for you. It’s taking imperfect action and learning from real results instead of waiting for perfect knowledge.
Speed (Just Do Something)
Overthinking is the enemy of progress. You can spend six months researching the just-right approach to author newsletters, or you can start one this week and improve it as you go (strategize before optimize!). You can analyze pricing models endlessly, or you can set your rate and adjust based on real market feedback. Speed beats perfection. Taking imperfect action beats staying stuck in meticulous planning. Doing something moves you forward. Not doing anything keeps you exactly where you are. Pick something. Do it today. Learn from the result. Repeat.
Build Your Business Savvy As You Go
You don’t need an MBA to run an author business. You need to make decisions, see results, adjust, and repeat. Every pricing conversation teaches you about value perception. Every pitch teaches you about positioning. Every client interaction teaches you about boundaries and service delivery. Every failed experiment teaches you what not to do next time. This is phronesis—practical wisdom a la the ancient Greeks—built through action. You can’t get it from books or courses. You get it from doing. So do. Your business savvy will catch up to your ambition if you give it real-world problems to solve.
Courage Before Confidence
Confidence doesn’t come before action. Courage does. You need guts to make the first pitch, gumption to set higher rates, nerve to call yourself an expert while still figuring things out. That’s how confidence really gets built (see the research)—you act with courage first, then confidence follows from the doing. From the accomplishment. Wins, failures, and everything in between. You might think, I’m not ready, while sending the proposal; I’m bad at marketing, while testing approaches anyway, I need permission, while realizing there’s no permission-granting authority other than yourself. Your mindset doesn’t always shift ahead of time, but it often shifts when you do the thing that scares you and survive it. Let your bravery lead the way and let your confidence catch up.
Customize to Fit Your Life (Because There’s No Prescribed Path Anyway)
Here’s the secret I’ve shared too many times about the right way to build an author business: There is none. Every path should be customized because every author’s life, strengths, values, and goals are different. What works for the author with three kids and a day job isn’t the same as what works for the empty-nester with time flexibility. What works for the extroverted speaker may not be in the playbook for the introverted writer. What works for the business book author cannot be overlapped onto a novelist’s marketing campaign.
Get over finding a prescribed path and start choosing and creating your own path. Insert yourself wherever makes sense for your life right now. Need income fast? Start with services. Want to build slowly? Focus on your book and newsletter. Hate social media? Skip it. Love speaking? Make that central. There’s no right sequence or insertion point. Jump in the author game at any place or pace to fit your actual life.
Cause It Is a Game...of Hard Truths, Soft Skills, and Inner Gamification
Treating your author business as a game doesn’t mean not taking it seriously. It means recognizing that games have rules you learn by playing, levels you unlock through progress, and strategies that emerge through experimentation. The hard truths: You need revenue, pricing matters, outreach works, it can be really hard. The soft skills: Building relationships, reading situations, knowing when to push, when to pull back, and when to pivot. The inner gamification: Setting challenges, tracking progress, celebrating wins, leveling up your capabilities. When you see it as a game, failure becomes feedback, experimentation becomes normal, and the pressure to get everything right on the first try disappears. Play the game. Take imperfect action. You’ll get better as you go. It feels hard but it is not as hard as writing a book…and you’ve done that!
Authors, It’s a Game and the Winning Is Built Into the Design: Play the Part of the Video Game Hero
Tell Us in the Comments
Where are you inserting yourself into the author business game? What imperfect action are you taking this week?
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