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Have you ever caught yourself being perfectly content with where you are at in your author business until you see another author's success in a Facebook post?
Maybe they posted about a book launch that brought in more money than you made all year.
Or they talk about their Facebook ads transforming their sales.
Or maybe they released books twice as fast as you do and suddenly your author career that you were perfectly happy with yesterday starts feeling inadequate.
And the next thing you know, you start wondering whether you should change your strategy.
Spend more, publish faster, try whatever they are doing.
Only nothing's changed in your author business that's causing you to now question your strategy.
Your sales haven't dropped, your writing hasn't stalled. The only thing that changed is what you saw.
Personally, I've been caught in this snare more times than I want to admit and I've started realizing that comparison doesn't only affect how we feel about our author business or our author success.
It can also start making our business decisions for us.
There's a moment between Peter and Jesus in John 21 that has been sitting with me all week because I think it speaks right into the heart of this.
So today I want to talk about how another author's success can actually pull you off course,
how to recognize when that's happening, and how to learn from successful authors without turning their writing journey into instructions to for your author business.
If you've ever found yourself strategy hopping after seeing another author's success,
this one is for you.
This is the Anointed Scribe Podcast.
If you're a self published Christian author who's ready for real growth in your relationship with God and in your author business, this is your home for growing your faith and building a profitable author business God's way.
I'm Urcelia Teixeira, best selling and indie Christian author and I'd love to walk this journey with you. Come on in friend. It's good to have you here.
Hey, it's your author friend Urcelia and welcome back to the show.
If you're here for the first time, this is where we grow our faith and build profitable author businesses using biblical wisdom,
author success strategies, and a little bit of my personal experience sprinkled in.
So if you want to build and grow your author business God's way, you are in the right place.
And friend, I'm going to jump straight into today's topic and say that comparison is super sneaky in the author world.
And I don't mean the obvious kind where you look at another author and think, oh, I wish I had what they have.
Sometimes comparison looks much more respectable than that.
It can actually look much more like research.
Like when you see another author who's doing well with Facebook ads, and so you start paying attention to it a little bit more. You notice what kind of ads they're running.
You look at their books, maybe you hear them talk about their budget or the course they took in one of the writing groups.
None of that is a problem.
I learn from other authors all the time. We absolutely should.
But somewhere along the way, that curiosity can turn into pressure. And let me just say, I have felt that shift in myself a few times.
Somebody gets amazing results from something, and before I know it, I'm thinking, should I be doing that too?
And I don't always stop to ask whether we even have the same kind of business.
That author may have 20 books out. Maybe I only have five.
They may write in a genre where readers race through an entire series in a weekend.
They may have years of data showing exactly what they can afford to spend to acquire a reader. I might not.
Or maybe they may also have a team helping them with a business while I'm trying to finish my next book and keep the rest of my life moving.
But here's the thing.
Comparison tends to skip over all that context.
We only see the result,
then our minds start filling in the blanks. And that's where I think we can get ourselves into a little bit of trouble if we are not on guard.
Because used correctly, another author's success can absolutely teach you something useful without it becoming grounds for you doing what they are doing.
Knowing that and being aware of it is so important as you keep growing your author career.
And it brings me to Peter in John 21:20-22,
where Jesus has this deeply personal conversation with him, with Peter,
to remind you of the scene in scripture if you don't know it or can't recall it right now. This is just after Peter denied Jesus three times.
And Jesus then restores him in this beautiful scene on the beach at a campfire,
then gives him this weighty assignment where he puts Peter in charge of everything.
And then Jesus tells Peter what's going to happen to him in the coming days, and specifically that Peter is going to die by crucifixion.
And then Jesus says to him, follow me. That's his assignment. Follow me.
But almost immediately, Peter looks back at John, who's trailing behind them, and starts comparing his responsibility with John's role in all of this. And Peter then says, lord, what about this man?
What about this Guy.
I love how human that is.
Jesus has just spoken directly to Peter about Peter's own journey.
And Peter looks sideways at John and says, but what about him?
How come I'm the one who has this massive assignment, I'm the one who is to follow you, and then I'm the one who has to die.
And you know what Jesus says to him? He says this.
If it is my will that he remain until I come,
what is that to you, Peter?
You follow me.
That sentence has some bite to it as well, right?
Jesus brings Peter's attention straight back to where it belongs.
Stay in your lane, Peter. That's your past.
John has his,
you have yours. Your responsibility is simply follow me.
And when I read that, I started thinking about how quickly I can do the same thing in my author business where I can know what I'm supposed to be working on.
I can have peace about a decision only to see what another author is doing, for me to start questioning everything.
Maybe God led me to slow down and focus on writing the next book, prayer, properly. But then somebody announces their fourth release of the year and suddenly I start feeling like my slow release strategy isn't good enough.
Or maybe I've decided social media doesn't deserve much of my energy right now. But then I hear another author say TikTok has doubled their income.
Maybe I'm grateful for the sales I had this month because it's settling all the bills.
Then somebody posts a five figure screenshot and suddenly those same sales that have just pleased me has me doubting God's provision. For me.
Nothing changed in my business,
but I just looked sideways like Peter and friend. I think we have to be careful here because comparison can make us abandon good decisions.
Often God led decisions before they've had time to produce any fruit.
It can also make us spend money because we're trying to close a gap that may exist mostly in our heads. I've done that too. I've bought courses because somebody else's results made me feel like I'm missing out or that I'm being left behind.
I've tried strategies because I thought I should be further along. And sometimes the strategy itself was perfectly sound.
But I was bringing the wrong motive into it. I wasn't solving a problem in my business. I was trying to soothe the discomfort I felt after looking at somebody else's business.
That can become a very expensive way to run an author business.
So now when I see another author doing something well, I'm trying to slow down before I turn admiration into action. I want to understand what I'm looking at?
If someone runs ads profitably, why do those ads make sense in their business?
Maybe there's a long series behind them with a strong read through.
Maybe that author knows that a reader who enters at book one will go on to buy another six books.
That will make all the difference in that strategy, right?
And so then I have to come back to my own author business and say, would the same strategy they are using actually solve something I need solving right now?
Because if my problem is poor conversion,
sending more traffic may just send more people to a page that that still isn't doing its job.
If the next book is eight months late, learning another ad platform may not take priority in my schedule right now.
And if I already have a marketing channel that works,
abandoning it because somebody else found a shinier one could set me back months.
This is where comparison starts. Affecting profitability.
It can make us chase tactics instead of making clear decisions.
And that's the part I think we need to take seriously. As Christian authors,
we want growth.
Sure,
we want more readers and strong sales. We want our author business to make money, to feed our family and to sow back into the kingdom.
But I also want to know why I'm making the decisions I'm making before I make them.
Am I responding to something my business needs or am I reacting to somebody else's success?
Those two motives can look identical from the outside. You could be buying the same course, run the same ad, or join the same platform. But only you and God may know what drove that decision.
And this is also where I want to remind you of my Christian Author Growth Roadmap™ that can help you stay on track.
If you're someone who keeps looking at what other authors are doing because you're not sure what your author business needs right now or where you're headed next, then please download the roadmap so you can stay on course.
You can download it for free. It's at anointedscribe.com/Roadmap I'll also put the link in the show notes for you.
Now there's another side to comparison that I think catches us just as easily.
Sometimes we don't copy a strategy, we copy a standard.
What do I mean by that?
When we adopt someone's standard, we can feel grateful for our book launch until somebody posts a bigger one.
We can feel proud that we finished two books this year amidst all our personal circumstances until another author says they published six.
Then your author progress starts looking smaller. Except your progress isn't what was shrinking Right.
Your progress didn't shrink. What happened is that you changed the ruler you are measuring that progress with.
I think that happens more often than we realize because the Internet gives us access to another author's launch numbers and rankings and the ads and the dashboards and the income before we've even had breakfast.
And sometimes those authors share those things because they want to teach or celebrate the achievement. There's nothing wrong with that.
But the question is, what happens in us after we see it? What happens in your heart?
Because if another author's result makes you despise the fruit God is growing in your author business,
or it makes you doubt the season you are in,
or it confuses you that you don't know what your next step is,
then you need to take a moment and check your heart.
You can want more. You can pursue growth.
You can look at part of your author business and say, this needs to improve.
I don't want us using faith as an excuse to avoid learning, investing, or making decisions.
But another author's results cannot become the ruler for your business. It cannot be what you measure your business against.
I would much rather ask whether my business is becoming healthier.
Am I reaching more of the right readers? Are my books converting better? Are readers moving into the next book?
Am I using my money with more wisdom than I did a year ago? Those questions tell me something about my own stewardship. It tells me about the health of my business.
It tells me about the health of my relationship with God.
They bring my attention back home in my own lane.
And that takes me back to Peter's question where he asks, what about him?
We ask versions of that question all the time. What about their sales? What about their platform? What about their publishing schedule? What about their ads?
And Jesus answer keeps bringing us back.
What is that to you? You follow me?
That doesn't mean we stop learning from other authors. I hope we can keep learning.
God can use people to teach us. And wise business owners pay attention to what works. But we need to learn without handing somebody else authority over our decisions.
So this week,
pay attention to the moments when another author's success changes how you feel about your author business.
You don't need to beat yourself up over it. Just notice it. Just take note of it.
Maybe you see a post and immediately feel the urge to change something.
Give yourself a little space. Before you go and do that, ask why that specific strategy suddenly feels so urgent to you.
Then come back to what's happening in your own business.
Does something actually need fixing?
Or did somebody else's result create a problem in your mind that wasn't there 10 minutes ago.
Then take it to God in prayer.
Ask him to show you where comparison has started, getting a vote in your decisions.
Ask for wisdom and then come back to the work he has already put in front of you. That may mean changing direction.
It may mean staying where you are. Either way, you want the decision to come from clarity instead of pressure.
Friend, other authors are going to keep succeeding. I really hope they do.
I hope we can celebrate them, learn from them, and still stay grounded enough to keep tending the business God has put in front of us.
What is that to you? You follow me.
I think I'm going to keep these words close to me.
And if you need help seeing what your own author business needs next,
you can grab the Free Christian Author Growth Roadmap™ at AnointedScribe.com/Roadmap. The link is waiting for you in the show Notes.
Thank you for spending this time with me today.
May your pen stay faithful, your roots grow deep, and every word you write bear fruit for his glory.
