Hi Everyone, I just joined Lee's Skool. She asked me to post what you're writing right now, and my goals for my author business here on the Community feed! Currenlty WRiting: Well, editing.... Finishing up a dark Romance novella for Nov release. It's a seasonal novella. Goal for Author Business: Right now it is to 10x my KU reads and 10x my preorders for the Nov release. But big picture is to become a 7 figure author. Need to hit 6 first, but I'll get there. Happy to be part of this group! -Alexa

THE SHIFT What’s the one key thing that took you from making newbie money to making a living money? Changing subgenres. I was doing relatively well for a newbie, but there was a ceiling to how far my style of writing could get me—and a relatively low ceiling to the subgenre itself. The big authors generally release much more frequently than I could, and there are few bestsellers—probably because the market isn’t large enough to propel an author to the kind of visibility that can pull in new readers to the subgenre. Can you nail the moment, or define it, when that moment of change happened, whether it be an internal or an external moment. And if yes, what exactly switched? I thought “if I keep doing what I’m doing, I’m going to keep getting what I’m getting, and I want more.” And then I took a risk, and I followed my creative instincts. My creative instincts don’t always pan out, but when they do, they lead to my biggest successes. THE STRATEGY What strategy got you where you are now? My mantra is “nothing is precious.” No book is make or break. No course of action is irreversible. There is no amount of nonrefundable money that will make me stick with something (cover, audiobook narration, branding, etc.) that isn’t right. Also—perhaps contradictorily—nothing has to be perfect. My characters are flawed, and so are my books. I ask myself a lot, “Would your readers like for this to be perfect, or would they like to read it this year?” They would like to read it this year, lol. How much do you spend annually on average for ads/promo? Most months, I spend between 6% - 9% of my gross royalties on cost per click advertising like Meta and Amazon. This year, I spent a rather large chunk of cash on an influencer campaign when I rereleased a series with new covers. The ROI was not positive, but I learned a lot, and I can see myself doing it again, applying lessons learned. I don’t do paid newsletters anymore. I move tons of free copies and yet see no bump like in the old days. For me, Meta is still king.

This October I challenge you to 10x an area of your business! - sales - page reads - pre-orders - subscribers - word count - followers - whatever you want! Post your goal in the comments! If you're not sure, post an idea and we'll help you workshop it. It's okay if the goal is a big scary--we'll cheerlead you! Shoot for the moon and land among the stars. We have a kick-off call October 1st! Let's do this!

https://nicholaserik.com/fb-2026/ Nick delivers great info!