When I Finally Became An Author

The shift that changed everything

“I’m an author,” I say in response to his question.

“Oh really, what have you written?” he asks.

“I’ve written a couple of books, one on productivity, and one a devotional for the Gospel of John,” again I reply.

“That’s amazing! What’s it like writing a book?” he asks more intrigued as he cooks my taco and I take a sip of my beer.

“It’s one of the funniest things I have ever done. It’s hard work for sure, but I have always been so pleased with how they turn out,” I say with a smile.

“How have they done?” he asks.

“My first one hit a bestsellers list for a day. But my devotional was the number one bestseller on four lists for a week!”

“Wow! That’s great! I’ll have to check them out,” he says.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, I’m going to run to my car, I always keep a copy to give out,” I tell him knowing that the likelihood that he will go find my book is low. So, I go to the car grab my latest book and bring it back.

“Wow! Thanks!”

These have been conversations I have been having since 2019 when I published my first book. At first, I wouldn’t tell people that I was a published author. Somehow, it didn’t seem right.

Yet, I found myself time and again wishing I would have said that instead of my day job, an insurance adjuster. When I finally made the switch permanently to telling people I’m an author, that's when things started to take off creatively.

Authors Publish Books

In 2019, I published my first book, Productivity Success: A Proven Path to Take Control of Work and Find Freedom from Stress. It was my crowning achievement. I shared it all over the place and saw hundreds of books sold. It was by far the beginning of something amazing.

Yet, it took me two years before I published another book. I pushed hard on the first one to share it about, but something wasn’t right. After we moved states and settled into our new home things started to change.

Over time, I started to change what I was writing about, feeling led me to share my faith through writing and find ways to encourage others who were feeling discouraged in their faith.

Finally, this year, I published my second book, The Gospel of John: What Happens When We Believe? This book did better than the first and it has started to kick off an entirely new frontier of creativity and work for me.

In fact, I have another book that I will publish this year and just finished the first draft for the next one after that.

It only took a change of title by myself to really kick things off.

I have read that calling yourself a writer before you are ready to do so helps you actually become a writer. I think I heard that from Jeff Goins or Steven Pressfield.

Either way, it is true about being an author too. Once I started calling myself an author, I started doing the work and thinking like an author. In short, I started writing to author books, not to write.

There have been other things that have helped this too.

Yes, I finally realized that making $100 here or $100 there wasn’t enough to make me feel I was going to start writing more books. It mostly just kept me busy for the longest time. Once I started writing in those areas in order to publish books, I started knocking out first drafts left and right.

In fact, this is the basis for how I write my books. They all start as blog posts, stories, or articles. Then I bring them together in one full manuscript. I have shared more about this here. And, I am starting to help others to do the same thing through coaching.

Ultimately, Authors Publish Books

I have come to the conclusion that publishing one book makes you an author. But being an author is about doing the work consistently. It’s not about making loads of money. Jon Acuff drove that point home in a YouTube video.

However, being an author is really about authoring books over and over again. Sure, if you are doing this through traditional publishing it takes years to do it. But, if you are like me, a self-published author, then you can do it more frequently with great quality too.

Are You An Author?

Are you an author? Have you published a book? Are you working on a book now? Have you started your next book?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions, chances are, you are an author. Guess what? You can tell people that too. First thought, you need to be able to tell yourself that in order to make it a reality.

After that, it all comes together.

If you have published a book, share it in the responses below! If you are working on a book, tell me about it in the responses below!

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