Week 23 - Author Business Coaching Challenge - Plenty
An ecosystem of enough and an overflowing cornucopia
Welcome to Week 23 of our ongoing Author Business Challenge — Join us at any time.
This is week 23 of the 29-week author business coaching challenge taking place on The Profitable Author / An Author Business You Love every Monday. (All prior challenge weeks are indexed here.)
It’s free and open to all authors—established or aspiring; fiction or non-fiction; self-, hybrid-, or traditionally published. Fluffy or scholarly. Cookbooks or children’s books. All authors. Even you. Especially you.
Just set your goals for the months ahead and do the work on your own behalf.
Participate and support other authors as you can. We’ll be learning, absorbing, and applying 28 big ideas from the world of coaching to these goals.
You can, of course, modify your goals as you go. The ultimate idea here is to find yourself with a toolbox of coaching concepts that you can draw upon as needed going forward.
First, let’s review
Here was Week 22’s challenge article:
Reviewing last week’s big idea—Video Game Hero: What sort of video games (it’s a metaphor!) or simulated environments did you notice yourself in? Did you encounter only obstacles, grinding, and a serious lack of progress…or a mix of challenges, delights, and rewards? What happened when you reframed your author business as a game where winning—no matter how tricky—is built into the design and always available to you?
Use the comments section in these coaching articles or anywhere on this Substack to ask a question, ask for help, test out an idea, share what works for you, propose a collaboration.
This week’s big idea: Plenty
Before reading on, learn more about the concept of plenty:
This week’s challenge
⎕ Use a walk or meditation to take a silent inventory of where you have a sense of plenty in your life and where you feel lack. Savor the experience of plenty and make a mental note of what that feels like. Will you be able to re-create it / remind yourself of that as needed?
⎕ In your journal, create a page for every area of your author life where you noted lack. Start by idealizing for each what plenty in that area would be like. Then, return to right, right now and lower the bar (mind trick, remember?) until you have more than enough of this thing. Now brainstorm from this starting point on ways to move towards your ideal. Next? Set an intention (big idea 19) and take action (big idea 20) for each.
This big idea in action
One thing I notice from time to time with clients is how becoming aware of plenty of something points to the next pivot.
Plenty of speaking requests? Maybe it’s time to raise your prices.
Plenty of social media engagement (that doesn’t translate into sales)? Maybe it’s time to sharpen (or insert) your calls-to-action.
Plenty of podcasts? How else can you promote your books now that you’ve mastered this one area? Or—are podcasts enough to meet your goals?
Plenty of Amazon reviews? Now that your book is covered as far as social proof goes, what’s your next marketing hurdle?
Plenty of accolades (but not enough income)? Is it time to look at your business model or learn a bit more about income-generating options for authors?
Where does a sense of plenty point for you? Savoring where you are…or suggesting the next thing to focus on?
Before you move on…
In evaluating your author life now—or the past year as a whole—where have you experienced plenty (enough) and plenty (an abundance of good tings)? Where would you like to experience either sense of plenty next year? How will you know when it’s enough for you…or an embarrassment of cornucopian riches?
Set the stage for a year of plenty
Join our next free Zoom power-hour for authors, where we combine a little bit of business know-how with a whole of of community support, inspiration, and brainstorming on behalf of your questions and challenges.
Our next topic: New Year, New Revenue Streams: Practical strategies to diversify your author income in 2026
When: Thursday, January 15, 12pm-1pm