How I Became an Author That Made $$$ (& How You Can Too)
Hey Revenue Writers,
This last week I attended Dragonsteel Nexus 2025. For those who don’t know this is Brandon Sanderson’s 7500 person conference all around his fantasy/sci-fi universe he calls the Cosmere.
Why I Went to Dragonsteel
My 16 and 12 year old sons are SUPER fans of his.
So for 4 days I was immersed in the most epic lore, cosplay, and the most business savvy author I’ve ever seen.
It challenged me to try harder for those who read my stuff to create and do things bigger than just finishing a book and emailing a newsletter.
The Brandon Sanderson Lesson
There was one point in the conference when my son told me, “Brandon Sanderson doesn’t think he’s a prolific writer” which is humorous because he puts out multiple books a year (had 71 books as of 2023) and shows no signs of slowing down.
But my son told me, “He considers himself a slow writer so he forces himself to actually do his writing blocks.”
Why I’m Able to Publish So Much
This got me thinking, I’m not Brandon Sanderson, sure I have 31 books, have companies that make $$$ on the back of my books, far from a star like Sanderson, but what has allowed me to make it even this far when so many others haven’t?
For me, yes you must sit in seat and write, but it’s breaking down the complicated process of writing and publishing a book into simple tasks I know I can complete.
I create processes for myself and thats what I write to you all and in my books, my processes.
The Power of a Process (Not More Effort)
In case you don’t notice, I’m not telling you ALL the ways to market a book, or all the options of formatting tools, I teach you how I DO IT.
Not because its the only way, but becauses its my process of how I do it.
You might feel overwhelmed by thinking about writing and publishing a book, but if you have a process its doing one thing at a time until you’ve done them all.
It starts (for me) with defining 3 things for the book,
Person - who is the book for?
Problem - what problem are they facing I’m trying to solve?
POV - what is my unique solution to that problem, my point of view?
Now if you look through almost anything I’ve written you’ll see this pattern everywhere.
I wrote a Mini Book Revenue Machine Series into books that walk you through the process of each part of building your Revenue Machine, so you never have to face the mountain sized task of writing and publishing without a process or system to follow.
Following a process is what has allowed me to get this far and what will allow me to keep going.
What You Can Do Next
You can use my processes and when you deviate document what you did.
What steps did you do?
How did you do it?
Write yourself a mini SOP (standard operating procedure) so now you don’t have to guess what to do next, you just do the next thing on your list.
I’ll be doubling down on giving you all processes and ways to make writing and publishing Mini Books easier.
I hope you’ll stick around as I continue to break down what has worked (or not) for me.
Tell me where you are stuck and I’ll document what I’d do in your case and share it with you and the others.
Coach Chris Stanley