Read Time: 3 Minutes

My wife's books have generated over $720,000 in royalties and sold more than 350,000 copies.

But if I'm being honest with you, a lot of that success happened despite what we did, not because of it.

We got things wrong. A lot of things. For a long time. Especially in the beginning.

And looking back now, having worked with thousands of authors across a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres and at every stage of their journey, I can see exactly where we wasted time, money and energy.

So here's the question I've been asking myself lately:

If I had to start all over again tomorrow, knowing what I know now, what would I actually do?

That's what I'm going to answer in todays newsletter...

I'd Get The Foundations Right First

This is the big one.

When we started, we went straight to Facebook Ads.

Day one. Book one. No email list. No reader magnet. No welcome sequence. No strategy beyond "let's get some eyeballs on this book and hope for the best."

And it worked... sort of. $133 in our first month. But we spent about the same on the Facebook Ads.

Here's what I didn't understand back then... we were leaving so much money on the table.

Every reader who bought that first book and enjoyed it had no way to hear from us again. No email. No direct connection. Nothing.

We were paying to acquire readers and then just... letting them go.

If I started again, I wouldn't touch an ad platform until I had four things in place:

→ A reader magnet in the back of every book

→ A landing page to collect email addresses

→ A simple welcome sequence to nurture new subscribers

→ A system to improve read-through from book to book

Nothing complicated. But without those pieces, advertising is like pouring water into a bucket full of holes.

I'd Master One Platform Before Touching Another

For the first year, our business ran almost entirely on Facebook Ads.

When it worked, it was incredible. When Facebook changed something (which they do constantly), it was terrifying.

I'd dabbled with Amazon Ads and got some decent results, but they weren't as consistent as the Facebook Ads, so I dropped the ball on them.

And BookBub Ads? I was completely winging those back then – and the results showed.

My real mistake wasn't trying other platforms. It was trying to learn them at the wrong time – jumping to Amazon Ads or BookBub Ads whenever the Facebook Ads had an off-day instead of sitting with it, testing, persisting, and figuring out why things suddenly stopped working.

If I started again, I'd commit to one ad platform for 90 days. Minimum. I'd put the blinkers on to not even give myself the chance to look at any other ad platform during these 90 days.

I'd learn it properly. Get it humming along. And only then would I layer on a second platform, whilst maintaining and scaling the first.

Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads, BookBub Ads – each one reaches readers in a different way, at a different stage of the buying process. And when one platform has a rough patch (and they all do), the others keep things moving.

But the key word is "layer." Not "juggle." You don't learn three musical instruments at once. You get good at one, then pick up the next.

I'd Focus On The Reader Journey, Not Just Book 1

We spent a huge amount of money, time and energy testing, optimizing and scaling ads for Book 1 – and I still recommend that. You need to get readers into your series. That front door matters.

But what I completely ignored was what happened after they walked through it.

The reader journey. Book 1 to Book 2. Book 2 to Book 3. And so on.

Because here's what most authors don't realize: the real money isn't in selling Book 1. It's in read-through. It's in Book 2, 3, 4 and beyond.

A reader who buys Book 1 for $4.99 might be worth $20-$30+ across a full series (depending on the length of the series) when you factor in page reads and sales of subsequent books.

If I started again, I'd keep a much closer eye on my read-through numbers.

And I'd focus on overall ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) across the whole series, not just Book 1. That changes everything – the ads that look like they're "losing money" on Book 1 might actually be your most profitable campaigns when you zoom out and look at the full picture.

I'd Trust the Compound Effect

This one's hard to admit.

There were moments, especially in that first year, where I nearly pulled the plug. The numbers were small. The progress felt slow. And I kept comparing our results to authors who'd been doing this for years.

What I didn't understand is that reader momentum builds slowly and then accelerates.

The jump from $133 in month one to nearly $5,000 by December of that same year didn't happen because we found some secret hack.

It happened because readers were discovering Book 1, reading through the series, and telling other readers about it.

Compounding. That's all it was.

Here's the thing that blows my mind: 95% of my wife's royalties – nearly all of that $720,000 – comes from one series of four books.

Four books.

You don't need to pump out novels every other month to build a profitable author business.

You need a good series, the right systems around it, and the patience to let momentum build.

If I started again, I'd trust the process more and panic less.

The Key Takeaway

You don't need to make the same mistakes I did.

If you're early in your author journey, or even if you've been at this for a while and things just aren't clicking, here's what I'd focus on:

→ Get your foundations in place before spending money on ads

→ Master one ad platform at a time (for 90 days, minimum)

→ Optimize for the full reader journey, not just the first sale

→ Track your ROAS across the whole series, not just Book 1

→ Give the compounding effect time to work

The authors who succeed aren't the ones with the biggest ad budgets or the most books.

They're the ones who build the right systems in the right order, and then give those systems time to do their thing.

That's all for today.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

To Your Success
– Matt