One of the most important things you have as an author is your "why" and how that defines your goals. This came up in Stacey's class yesterday (did you register and catch the replay?) and it will come up in my Craft Lab next week: what do you want from your writing? This can include both personal satisfaction and financial gain. Do you just want your story to be out there, and available, but really don't care about readers or sales? While authors tell me this, most of the time when we did deeper, it's not true. It might be for you, but it rarely is for those in my orbit. Do you want writing to be your hobby, and if you make some money, fine. If not, no big deal? This is pretty common actually. Sometimes authors simply run their businesses this way not because they want to, but because they can't afford to invest in their business to take it to the next level. Let's pause here for a second, and hang a bell on the hobby approach. Just because your writing is a hobby does not mean you can't invest in it. I used to teach skiing, and while it didn't make me a lot of money, it made me some, and--I took classes and was PSIA certified. I even went after specialized training. I purchased new ski gear, often. I made sure I was the best equipped I could be to do the job. And I trained, both physically and mentally, for the work I did. To make a living as a ski instructor in the United States is exceptionally difficult. Only a few resorts in the country pay well enough and have enough traffic and the right clientele to support full time, pro ski instructors. That didn't stop me from investing and trying to be the best I could be. Skiing 50-55 days a year was a nice bonus, because I got to do what I loved. If you treat writing as a hobby business, you have the same opportunity. Invest in equipment and education. Work on your craft, and train mentally for the work you have to do. Investment is not always tied to outcomes, other than your personal improvement and happiness.

The World Cup? This is not a soccer Skool, is it? No, you're in the right place. But let me explain. The World Cup is huge around the world. As much grief as the organizers, FIFA, get for their money grabbing tactics, high ticket prices, and...well, this is not a soccer school, so back to the story. The World Cup brings all kinds of people together, makes soccer fans (even temporary ones) out of people who never watched soccer before. (It's really futbol, but I digress. Again.) When does this happen in the book world? Think about Dungeon Crawler Carl. A lit RPG that is not a super popular genre has masses of people reading and listening to the audiobooks. It's drawn people together, and you know a fan when you hear, or see a bumper sticker that says, "dammit donut!" Can your book do the same thing? Sure it can! Dungeon Crawler Carl is not the best written series in the world. But it has several things we can imitate. Originality. This is not a common, troped up idea, but there are tropes used. It's an outlier, and truly unique. Authenticity. This series has funny moments, and moments that are just plain raw. The characters are not deep (until later in the series) but they struggle with real life problems in the context of a game. Great characters: Speaking of characters, from Carl to the announcer "NEW ACHIEVEMENT" the characters are original, each is unique, and all of them have a distinct role and voice. We could do an entire analysis (maybe we should?) of the stories and the series in a variety of ways. But this also proves something. We said on our podcast that an author needs a few things to create a successful career today. The first is an audience. The second is a backlist. The third is a platform. Dungeon Crawler Carl and the author have all three of those things. They were intentionally built. Not accidents. And you can do the same thing if you look at your career as an author intentionally. But it all started with the key element. A great story.

So as you can imagine with our ongoing AI survey, I have talked to a lot of people (even before that) about AI. And there seem to be two primary reactions: enthusiasm, or fear, although my theory is that those are simply the loudest voices, and most people fall somewhere in between. But let's talk about a few things that might fall on both sides: AI is not a savior, or the devil. It is certainly not the answer to some of the woes of publishing, and may even create new ones (at least temporarily). But in and of itself it is a tool, and tools do not do bad things without evil people to wield them. AI has the potential to do good or bad things, and how that happens is the choice of the user. Digital Privacy and AI. Look, digital privacy has been a myth online for years, and we need to dispel a few things. First, if you use any modern tech, from cell phones to social media in any form, and most email services, and certainly if you own and run a website, have an email list of readers, or use most other tech, your privacy is already compromised to a certain extent, and maybe a great extent. As a public figure, like an author, your image, your name, and at least some information about you is easily found in a Google Search. Because to build the audience and platform you need to sell books, you have to be discoverable. Discoverability is the biggest obstacle most authors face when it comes to marketing. (even though people are more likely to know your name than your face). You can choose, to some extent, how visible you are, but it is extremely challenging to remain invisible and build an author career at the same time. AI is not making that better. It makes it worse, and people constantly give their images to AI to do fun things like put on make up, or make me into an action figure, or try different hairstyles. AI is being used at airports to verify your face and identity. Most people use their face to unlock their phones. This is hard when we see AI in so many things in so many places, and in almost every app we use. Here's the truth: if you are online, you are likely using AI, like it or not. In some places you can turn AI features off, in others it is part of the price of using an app.

This is really a discussion post, because I am curious. We have our AI survey currently running, but I'm curious about your sentiment (and this is an invitation, again, to invite others to this community). How do you feel about the future of publishing (in general, you don't have to get specific, but you are welcome to in the comments below)? Do you have a positive outlook, a negative one? Why do you feel that way? Here's something I want you to do: take your time to consider your answer. Don't just impulse answer, but think about your true feelings, and why you feel that way. I'll start in the first comment.

Curious if anyone else has wrestled with this: I came from a B2B marketing background, so I assumed book marketing would feel somewhat familiar. Instead, I’ve found author marketing to be surprisingly expensive, fragmented, and often exhausting. At times, it feels like writers can spend more energy trying to become marketers, platform builders, video creators, ad managers, SEO specialists, and social media personalities than actually writing books. Some days I honestly think: “What if I just focused on writing better books instead?” 😄 I’d love to hear how others are balancing the business side with the creative side without burning themselves out.