Every January, we all seem to make the same promises to ourselves. Eat better. Be more organised. Read more books. Start fresh. Reinvent ourselves. For me, this year’s version of that promise looks a little different.
I want to get better at book marketing.
That sentence alone feels heavier than it should. Not because I don’t care, but because over the last few months of 2025, I genuinely questioned whether I should keep writing at all. Not because I’m out of ideas. I have more stories in my head than I’ll probably ever have time to write. And not because I’ve fallen out of love with it. Writing has never been “just a hobby” for me.
The truth is simpler and harder to admit.
Writing has cost me a lot over the last five years. Time. Money. Energy. Emotional bandwidth. And the return has not matched the investment.
I was told early on that if I wanted to maximise sales as a new author, I needed to write a series. So I did…
I wrote multiple books, built worlds, developed characters, and stayed consistent. What I didn’t learn was how to actually get those books into readers’ hands.
I assumed that posting on social media would be enough. That visibility would somehow translate into sales if I just showed up often enough.
It didn’t. And watching the numbers barely move, month after month, chipped away at my confidence in ways I didn’t expect.
I got discouraged. Quietly. Internally. I didn’t announce it. I didn’t rage-quit. I just started shrinking back, wondering whether the sensible thing would be to put the pen down and walk away.
But here’s the part I had to be brutally honest with myself about. My low numbers are not because my stories are bad.
Bad stories don’t win awards. They don’t resonate with readers who do find them. They don’t get kind messages from people who stayed up too late turning pages. The problem isn’t the work. The problem is that I don’t know how to get people to read it.
And no amount of aesthetic Instagram posts has fixed that.
What I’ve realised recently is that I’ve been avoiding something inevitable. Something uncomfortable. Something a lot of creatives struggle with.
Treating my writing like a business.
I know how that sentence lands. Art isn’t supposed to be a product. Stories are personal. They come from somewhere real. And the idea of packaging creativity into funnels, strategies, and marketing plans can feel soul-destroying.
But here’s the reality I can’t ignore anymore.
If I want writing to be my career, I have to stop treating it like a passion project that magically pays off one day. Wanting to live off your art means learning how the industry works. It means understanding visibility, positioning, marketing, and yes, sales.
Avoiding that doesn’t make me more authentic. It just keeps me invisible.
So maybe this isn’t a “new year, new me” moment after all. Perhaps it’s a “same me, but braver” one.
“In 2026, I’m choosing to put my imposter syndrome aside. I’m choosing to step out of the shadows and learn the parts of this journey I’ve been avoiding. Not because I want to turn my stories into soulless products, but because I want to give them a fair chance to reach the readers they were written for. This year, I’m treating my writing as the career I’ve always wanted it to be.”
