SSA #047: Complexity Is Hard To Scale

Self-sabotaging your success as an author is something that can creep up on you without you even realizing it's happening.

And whether you're earning a few hundred dollars per month from your books, or tens of thousands of dollars per month, today's edition of The Saturday Self-Published Author will help you spot the signs that you're heading down the wrong path.

Let's dive into it...

 
Can You Stop?

Reaching the elusive six-figure status as an author is an incredible achievement and something that should quite rightly be celebrated.

The percentage of authors who reach this revenue level is slim, so you should be immensely proud if you are already earning six figures, or when you hit that six-figure mark.

It's at this revenue level, however, that you may feel like you're chasing your tail some days (as me how I know), seeing the seven-figure authors out there and feeling like you can't afford to stop.

If you are experiencing these feelings and hearing that voice inside your head telling you that you can't take a break, I would encourage you to ask yourself when is enough, enough?

How much do you really need to earn to live the life you want to live? Chances are, it's less than you think (despite inflation). 

And if you're anything like me, who just can't sit still (something I'm working on), if you can't take a day off without feeling guilty about not working, you have to ask yourself what sort of business you're building.

Are you building yourself into another job? Are you building yourself a prison you can't escape from? What does your idea business look like? What does your perfect day entail?

Complexity is Hard To Scale

When you reach the six-figure revenue level in your author business, things are looking rosy, but at the same time, it can be incredibly tempting to start diversifying.

Without realizing it yourself, you may start to let go of what has got you to this level of success and start looking for something new, such as:

- New Traffic Sources

- New Ad Platforms

- New Books

This may all seem like a good idea, but the issue with adding all these elements to your business is that it adds complexity. And complexity is hard to scale, and hard to manage; especially if you're running your author business on your own.

Don't Forget About Your Backlist

New books are great to have in your catalogue, don't get me wrong, but what I find many authors I speak to doing is putting all their focus on their new books and forgetting about their backlist.

But that's where the real money is; in your backlist.

Sure, in the short term, your new releases may bring in a rush of royalties, but for long-term sustainable royalties, the backlist is where it's at.

If you can't afford to stop publishing books every 1-3 months, you have to ask yourself the question of whether your business is built on launches. 

Do you rely on launches for your income? Once you've launched a new book, are you straight away moving on to writing and marketing the next book?

Or are you identifying the 20% of your catalogue of books that are driving 80% of your royalties, and focusing your marketing and advertising efforts there, consistently, day in, day out?

I'm not saying not to promote your new books, but perhaps you can do so without cannibalizing the results you've achieved from your backlist.

You could, for example, just launch your new books to your email list, run some Facebook Ads for 1-2 weeks to give things a push, and then add this new book to your About The Author / Also By pages in all your books.

But putting 100% of your marketing and advertising time, money and energy into new books will seriously hurt your bottom line.

Simplicity Will Scale

My advice to reach six-figures if you're not there already, or to reach multiple six-figures, even seven-figures, is to simply do more of what's working.

With my wife's books, our most profitable and effective traffic source has been Facebook Ads; that has been a constant since Day 1.

Even over the past few months as we've been transitioning into Direct Sales, Facebook Ads has been (and will continue to be) the key driver of sales for us. It just works.

We are sticking with the simplest combination of traffic and books (Facebook Ads + Book 1 of the series). We're experimenting with advertising the Box Set, but 80% of the Facebook Ads budget is spent on Book 1 of the series.

It's Not Easy...

You may find yourself, like I did, fighting the temptation to experiment with new traffic sources, test out new Ad Platforms, new strategies, new tactics, the list goes on.

When you try and take on too much, you spread your time, energy and money way too thin, and your business can become a chore, trying to juggle all the different layers of complexity you've added.

But by keeping things simple, and doubling down on what's already working, you'll go so much further and find it much easier to scale.

Complexity fails, simplicity scales.

Thank you for reading and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

To Your Success
- Matt