Posted on July 14, 2025 at 9:16 AM by Jeffrey Bruner
If I could give authors one superhero skill, it wouldn’t be an encyclopedic knowledge of every fact in the world. It wouldn’t be the ability to write dialogue so amazing it would make Aaron Sorkin or David Mamet blush. And it wouldn’t be the wisdom to anticipate the next hot trend in books.
No, it would be patience.
You’ve read about overnight success stories – and they do happen – but the reality is that your odds of becoming one are lower than winning the lottery. It doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t chart out a slow and steady path to success.
It just requires patience.
Patience gives you the energy to keep going when your first book isn’t a runaway bestseller. And let’s remember, book #2 will at least benefit from your correction of all the mistakes you made in book #1. But when you do write the book that catches lightning in a bottle, now you’ve got three, four, five, or more books that readers will snap up quickly because at that point your fans are devouring your work faster than you can write it.
Take the story of Andy Weir, who released The Martian as a web serial on his blog starting in 2009. It was another two years before he collected all the chapters and published it on Kindle. Then another three years before Crown Publishing bought the rights and published it in paperback and hardback. Weir didn’t have anything else in print when the film adaptation of The Martian arrived in theaters in 2015.
Now look at Colleen Hoover. When It Ends with Us became a huge bestseller, she had a massive back catalog that her new fans bought in droves. At one point in 2022, 14 of the top 25 bestselling books were hers. She was able to capitalize on the moment because she had a large backlist when her breakout book happened.
Someone is going to point out that The Martian sold 5 million copies and Andy Weir is quite comfortable financially right now. He could probably never write another word and retire tomorrow if he wanted. But take a moment to scale this down to what is realistic for 99.9% of authors – that breakthrough book sells a few thousand copies (not millions), but because it leads to thousands of sales of your backlist, you are now in a position where your hobby can become your full-time job.
Writing is only half the battle – some would argue it’s an even smaller amount – because getting books into the hands of readers requires just as much patience.
I’ve promoted more than 250,000 books at The Fussy Librarian, and I’ve learned that having patience will allow you to see that this is a marathon and not a sprint. And that you need to give the long-term value of a new reader more weight than what happens during a 24-hour promotion window.
When I make investments in my business, I look at whether I expect to get a return within 12 to 18 months. I don’t expect it to pay off in a day or two. I’m currently spending the next six months on a huge business project that I think will be a game-changer for authors. It will likely cost me $75,000 to $100,000 – by far the most expensive project we’ve ever done. But I think it will pay for itself within a year because I’ll sell more advertising to authors who see that what I’m doing will help them sell more books.
As an author, you must have the same long-term outlook and, yes, patience in your book marketing. Say you have five books – priced at 99 cents, $2.99, $2.99, $3.99, and $4.99. And you’d like to promote the 99-cent book. Say the newsletter promotion or the Facebook ads cost $20 and you sell 10 copies. The Kindle royalties amount to just $3.50.
Is that promotion a failure? Hold your answer for a second. Now assume that because that 99-cent book is really awesome, six of those readers go on to buy your other books over time at the higher price points. Now your total royalties are $66 – about 95% of the proceeds came later. And that’s a 230% return on your investment.
Maybe it takes a year to fully pay out. Maybe it takes two years. But it’s worth it. If I told you that you would more than double your retirement savings within 24 months, you would grab that in a heartbeat, right?
Growth is rarely instant, but it almost always builds on itself. So be patient – and persistent – to give your work the time it needs to succeed.
Categories: Behind the scenes