You're not really building an author career, you're scaling a startup

Think like a founder, not just a writer. A roadmap for authors to stop winging it, treat their books like a business, and start building a creative career that scales.

Hi,

Publishing loves binaries. You’re either “trad” or “indie,” “new” or “established,” “serious” or “just starting out.” Unfortunately, that’s not how any of this actually works, and it’s definitely not helpful when you’re knee-deep in it, trying to figure out what to do next.

You don’t wake up one day and suddenly “have a career.” You don’t go from zero to bestseller just because you finally finished something. You’re not trying to “make it,” “break in,” or hit some magic number so the career gods come down and hand you a fanbase.

You’re not even building a writing career, really. You’re founding a weird, messy, IP-driven, audience-funded, emotionally unstable, product-led growth business. Creative humans aren’t taught to think this way, but they are in the startup world.

Yeah, that’s right. Startups.

Startups know from the beginning that they’re building something from scratch. They don’t pretend it’s going to work right away. They expect it to break, plan around failure, and learn how to move fast because they have to figure out what works before they run out of money.

Sound familiar? Because that’s what we’re doing, too.

We just don’t call it that.

Startups don’t launch and go straight to IPO. They start scrappy, build something small, test it with a few people, and then, only after they’ve got a lot of traction, they scale up.

Until then, they iterate until they find something that carries enough to scale it, if they ever do.

Most authors treat their first book, their first series, or even their first brand like a sacred object. They build everything around it. They pour all their time, money, and self-worth into making it “work.”

And when it doesn’t?

They panic, quit, or keep doubling down on something that’s already telling them it’s not working.

But your first thing probably won’t work, at least not perfectly or at scale, and certainly not forever.

Successful startups pivot all the time. They launch one product, realize it’s not quite right, and adjust. They pay attention to what people are responding to. They test new offers. They tweak the brand, the angle, and/or the audience.

And they don’t see it as failure, they see it as data.

Authors? We make it personal.

We take one failed launch as proof we’re not cut out for this, but in the business world iteration is the process. It’s not a backup plan. It’s the core strategy.

You write something, you ship it, you see what happens. Then you ask:

• What worked?

• What didn’t?

• What do I try next?

And you build again. This doesn’t mean chasing trends or ditching every project that doesn’t explode. It means staying responsive. It means adapting on purpose. The best founders know that not everything is meant to scale. Most ideas don’t get traction, or they only get so much traction.

The authors who last aren’t the ones who got it right the first time. They’re the ones who kept listening, kept building, and knew when to shift.

And that’s fine, normal even.

But authors treat every project like it has to be the thing. The breakout book. The series that funds our career. The launch that changes everything.

So when it doesn’t scale, we panic. We assume we failed, or worse, we try to force it to scale anyway.

Scale is rare, like really rare. In the startup world, less than 10% of venture-backed companies ever hit meaningful scale. Most never get past early traction. Some raise a little money, launch a thing, crash into the market, and die quietly. That’s just the game.

These are the “smartest” business leaders in the world investing billions into companies, and they only get it right 1 time out of 10. So, why are you beating yourself up because your book series didn’t hit the top of the charts like you wanted? You probably didn’t even know you were building a business until the start of this article.

Just because something doesn’t scale doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.

Most startups don’t become unicorns. Most books don’t become perennial bestsellers. Most series don’t pay the mortgage by themselves.

That doesn’t mean they’re failures.

There are tons of quiet, consistent, profitable businesses that don’t scale, but still support the person running them. They pay the rent. They fund the next project. They buy time, freedom, and leverage.

We think of the Zuckerbergs of the world, but most founders don’t run one company. They’re serial entrepreneurs because one idea isn’t enough. They need five revenue streams to make it work. They launch ten things to find the two that stick.

It’s the same for authors. You might write a series that crushes, and three that barely move. You might have one Substack that pays your rent, and six books that just keep the lights on.

It all counts.

You don’t need everything to scale. You just need enough of it to work.

Which is why knowing where you are at in your career is so important. Startups already have a language for the stages they go through from zero to “hitting scale”, and we can pretty easily map it onto authors.

• Pre-seed: You’re testing yourself. The writing is inconsistent. You’ve probably abandoned more projects than you’ve completed. No one’s reading your work yet because it’s not ready, or even done. Your only job here is to prove to yourself that you can get to the end.

• Seed: You’re testing the market. You’ve finished a book (or maybe two), and you’re putting it out into the world to see what happens. You’ve spent money on a cover, hired an editor, and launched something publicly for the first time. A few strangers have read it, maybe even reviewed it. You’re not trying to build a business yet, you’re just trying to find out if anyone gives a shit.

• Early: You’re testing the system. You’re done guessing. You’re building systems. You’ve launched multiple books, and now you’re trying to make the whole thing more predictable, writing cadence, launch plans, newsletter rhythm, reader retention. You’ve got a small audience that actually shows up, and you’re learning how to keep them coming back.

• Growth: You’re testing scale. You’ve proven the model. You’ve got a backlist, a fanbase, and a system that works. You know how to launch, how to sell, and how to keep money moving. You’re focused on expansion now with bigger campaigns, wider reach, more income streams, and less doing everything yourself.

Honestly, this is pretty much exactly how writing careers work, too. We don’t talk about authorship this way, but we should, because if you know what stage you’re in, you can stop stressing about everything else and focus on doing the right work for right now.

The clearer you are about where you’re at, the easier it is to know which projects are doing their job, and what that job even should be.

• Not every book wants to be a series.

• Not every launch deserves a funnel.

• Not everything will carry beyond your most loyal readers.

Sometimes, a project does its job for a short time and that’s it. It teaches you something. It finds a few people. It moves you to the next stage. I’ve never regretted any book I’ve ever written, and the ones I loved most are the least popular.

That doesn’t make them any less valuable. It only makes them less monetizable, which isn’t even close to the same thing.

Trying to scale the wrong thing will burn you out faster than failing ever will. The founders who win, same as the authors who last, are the ones who know when to build, when to iterate, and when to walk away.

Here’s how your career might change as you move through each stage.

Pre-seed: Prove it to yourself

This isn’t about the market. or even getting readers. The pre-seed stage is about you proving to yourself that you can actually finish something. Pre-seed is messy. It’s abandoned drafts, weird tangents, genre-hopping, and self-doubt. It’s raw, imperfect, and 90% of it will never see the light of day. But that’s not the point.

The point is to finish. To cross the finish line once, so you know you can do it again.

Common pitfalls at the Pre-seed stage:

• Getting stuck in “learning mode” instead of writing.

• Obsessing over craft before developing consistency.

• Comparing your rough draft to someone else’s final book.

To graduate from Pre-seed:

• Finish 1–2 full manuscripts.

• Publish something, even if it’s just a short story on your blog.

• Prove to yourself that you're capable of seeing a project through.

🧠 The work here is identity work. You're becoming someone who finishes.

Seed: Prove it to the world

Now you’ve got a book or two. This is where you find out if anyone outside your family cares at all. So, you have to make it real. You invest in paying for a cover, hire an editor, launch, and wait to see what happens. This is your first time showing up like a real author, even if you feel like you’re faking it the whole time.

Common pitfalls at Seed:

• Expecting financial validation too early.

• Blowing money on ads with no foundation.

• Ignoring the value of small wins (first review, first reader email, first unsub).

To graduate from Seed:

• Publish 2–4 books or products.

• Get 100+ email subscribers not related to you.

• Hear feedback from strangers who found you on their own.

🎯 The goal here is connection, not cash. Sales are great, but what matters most is resonance.

Early: Prove it’s repeatable

Anyone can get lucky once. Early-stage authors are trying to make lightning strike twice, and on purpose. This is where you start to ask bigger questions like can I hit deadlines without burning out, can I get readers to come back for more, and can I build systems instead of winging it?

Common pitfalls at the Early stage:

• Saying yes to everything. (Anthos! Courses! Three pen names!)

• Building an audience with no plan to retain them.

• Relying on chaos and caffeine to hit deadlines.

To graduate from Early:

• Establish a production + launch rhythm that doesn’t wreck you.

• Publish consistently (ideally enough to give you a decent potential for full-time money).

• Build at least one channel (email, Substack, etc.) where readers stick around.

🔁 The skill here is repeatability. You’re building the machine that makes the magic.

Notice that until this point, we’re not really worried about money. We’re worried about the infrastructure and the resonance of our message.

Growth: Prove it scales

This is the part everyone wants reach right now. The six-figure Kickstarters, licensing deals, army of assistants, ads that convert, and sold-out shows.

But none of that works if you haven’t done the earlier work. At this stage, you already know your reader. You’ve built a brand. You’ve built a system. Now it’s about building leverage by printing more books, launching bigger campaigns, selling direct, expanding your team, tapping into foreign rights, audio, merch, and beyond.

Common Pitfalls at Growth:

• Trying to scale before the foundation is solid.

• Overhiring or overbuilding without cash flow.

• Forgetting that the best businesses still serve people one by one.

To stay in Growth:

• Diversify your income streams.

• Hire and delegate smart.

• Know your metrics and dial in your flywheel.

📈 The goal here is sustainability with scale, not just growth for its own sake.

Everybody thinks scale means more. More books, more platforms, more ads, more content, more everything, but it’s the opposite. The stuff that scales is the stuff that’s simple.

The secret to scale is simplicity.

Most authors never get there because they’re too busy trying to juggle twelve complicated things that aren’t working when three simple things would. Authors love to abandon simple, repeatable, successful things to try something complex and impossible (me included btw).

Maybe 1-2 things in your career will hit scale, so why are we putting so much weight on something that is so unlikely?

You can still build a great business without ever hitting scale.

The problem is that publishing was built from the beginning on the toxic premise that either you hit scale or you die. Write the breakout. Build the backlist. Get the algorithm to take over so your books sell forever. That’s the model, but it’s not the only way, and we don’t have to live like that, because that model is broken.

It overwhelmingly favors very, very, very few people who can hit that scale at the expense of giving everyone else unrealistic expectations.

You can build a smaller, smarter business. One that’s sustainable, responsive, and designed around your actual life, not someone else’s fantasy of forever-sales and passive income.

You don’t have to chase scale. You just have to build something that works, no matter the stage.

• Pre-seed = prove it to yourself.

• Seed = prove it to the world.

• Early = prove it’s repeatable.

• Growth = prove it scales.

The only real mistake? Playing the wrong game at the wrong time. If you’re burning out, odds are good you’re chasing goals that don’t align with your current stage.

Stop, breathe and play the game you’re in. You’ll graduate faster that way, and with fewer scars.

What to do now? 🧪 Try a Stage-Specific Challenge

• Pre-seed: Finish and publish a short story in 30 days.

• Seed: Get 10 strangers to join your list.

• Early: Plan your next launch with an actual checklist.

• Growth: Build a backend offer for existing readers.

💬 Email me (or reply on Substack) with your stage. Tell me where you're stuck. I’ll point you to your next best move.

You’re not too late if you are t where you want to be, and you’re not too early. You’re certainly not failing. You’re just in a stage that doesn’t align with your expectations.

Know it, name it., own it, and when it’s time, graduate. So, what stage are you? Let us know in the comments.