Week 24 - Author Business Coaching Challenge - Gratitude
Say thanks, feel it, and go from there
Welcome to Week 24 of our ongoing Author Business Challenge — Join us at any time.
This is week 24 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 23’s challenge article:
Reviewing last week’s big idea—Plenty: Did you think about both senses of plenty (enough and more than enough) and different areas of your author life and ventures? Where do you have plenty (enough) and are good as is, no changes required? Are there places where you have plenty (more than enough) and a pivot, next step is in order?
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: Gratitude
Before reading on, learn more about the concept of gratitude for coaching yourself:
This week’s challenge
⎕ Devote a section of your journal (or dedicate a brand new journal) to gratitude. Create a running list of things you are grateful for in your writing, book marketing, and author life…a list that can be added to as a daily ritual or as you’re inspired. As you write what you’re grateful for, feel the gratitude for those things. Then, consider, what does this mean for moving ahead in my author business?
This big idea in action
One pattern I’ve observed with clients is how gratitude can shift not just mindset but momentum in their author businesses.
Grateful for your current readers? That appreciation can translate into deeper engagement—responding to emails, creating special content, or simply writing the next book with them in mind.
Grateful for a small but growing email list? Suddenly you’re more likely to send that newsletter consistently rather than waiting until your list “gets big enough.”
Grateful for the writing time you have (even if it’s just 20 minutes)? You’ll protect and use it rather than dismissing it as insufficient.
Grateful for your “failed” marketing experiments? That gratitude transforms them into data, wisdom, and inspiration to pivot rather than reasons to quit.
Grateful for your traditionally published books (even without big advances)? You might finally stop comparing yourself to bestsellers and start leveraging the credibility you’ve already earned.
Grateful for the podcast interview you did (even with a small audience)? You’re more likely to repurpose that content, reach out to other podcasters, and build on that experience instead of dismissing it as not worth the effort.
Grateful for the handful of sales your book made last month? That appreciation helps you see that real readers are choosing your work, which can fuel consistent marketing efforts rather than the “why bother” paralysis that comes from fixating on the numbers not being what you hoped for.
Before you move on…
Where does gratitude show up for you in your author business? And more importantly—what does it make possible that wasn’t possible before?
Big Gratitude
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining us here to work on the income-generating, book-marketing, business-building, and sustainability aspects of your author life.
Please join us Thursday, January 15, at 12pm CT, for our next Zoom power hour for ALL authors. It’s little bit business know-how + a whole lot of community support and brainstorming for YOUR questions and challenges. Our topic is: New Year, New Revenue Streams. Who can’t learn something new or inspiring in that department? We’d love to have you.
It’s $10/month or $97/year, which is less than twenty-seven cents a day on behalf of your author goals, author income, and author business. If you ever feel you’re not receiving value in a reasonable multiple of this small investment, please email me and request a refund.