Business mindset is just as important as business strategy, says Managing Director of Author Nation Joe Solari in part 3 of his quarterly series. Plenty of indie authors limit their growth by avoiding taking risks or telling themselves they won’t succeed at certain publishing ventures, but Solari says failure is the biggest teacher we have—and often, it means we’re one step farther along the path to success. This month, he encourages authors to embrace a paradigm shift and the idea of failure, so they can embrace new opportunities down the road.
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I recently met with an old economics professor of mine who reached out to me to discuss book publishing. He finds himself in an interesting position: he has a book that he wants to publish, but he is conflicted because of his paradigm.
In his world as a University of Chicago professor, there is only one kind of publishing—academic publishing. You write a book, get peers to review it, and then find a publication of a certain “caliber.”
He knows my work with authors, so we sat down to talk about a different way of publishing. A way that you understand—the indie way.
He told me that 100 percent of his students whom he teaches economics never become economists. They learn how to apply economics to the real world. I would put myself in that category. I learned a lot about economics from him and have applied it to my daily operations.
He met with me because he feels that self-publishing is the more productive path, but twenty-three years of institutional thinking and being surrounded by others with a vested interest in that thinking make it difficult for him to apply some of the best lessons he has taught about failure.
He says that there are only two types of failure: failure of imagination and failure of courage. As an outsider, it is easy for me to see how he suffers from both and limits his beliefs to those that fit within his paradigm.
I have invited him to Author Nation so he can have his paradigm shifted.
All of us stay where we are comfortable because it gives us the illusion of safety. That same comfort reinforces mindsets that limit our imagination and induce institutional fears that sap our courage. It’s easy for us who have embraced indie publishing to see how a tenured professor is limiting his imagination by not embracing a publishing path that offers far more control and is better suited to reaching his ideal audience.
Rather than judge him, ask yourself, “What am I myopic about? What reality have I framed that limits my imagination?”
I see this in our marketing and advertising community. Some say that advertising is the only way to grow your brand. Yet I’ve seen multiple examples of authors who have done so without spending on ads, or on the flipside, they have had success by spending a lot on ads and fear what would happen if they stopped. When challenged to test those assumptions, it sparks fear and resistance.
How are we challenging our paradigms and pushing beyond our comfort zones? Embracing new paths requires imagination and courage, and it's essential to recognize where we might be holding ourselves back.
So much of failure is a failure of courage. We live in a world where all we are shown is how easy it is and how successful others have been. This leads us to not take action—sometimes to the point of not even starting. The comparison makes us feel like we are failing when we are not.
It’s easy to say that true failure is not to try at all. The other end of the spectrum is not knowing when to give up. I know from my own experience that I have tried and failed numerous times, and I have also made some failures worse by not giving up sooner when it was clear the situation would not improve. The emotional and economic costs were substantial, impacting not just my finances but also my mental well-being and stress levels. However, despite these significant challenges, the experience and learning I gained were the big payoff.
For indie authors, this might manifest as continuing to pour resources into a book series that isn't finding its audience or persisting with a marketing strategy that yields poor returns. The key is to set clear benchmarks for success, regularly assess your progress, and be willing to change course if those benchmarks aren't met—remembering that the lessons learned from these experiences are invaluable for your future projects and overall growth as an author.
We find success somewhere between a failure to start and a failure to stop. Each failure taught me valuable lessons about resilience, perseverance, and the importance of knowing when to pivot or abandon a course of action. These insights have proven invaluable in navigating future endeavors and making more informed decisions. I hope you, too, can benefit from what I've learned, but if you're like me, the only way you'll truly learn is by failing. It's through these failures that we chart our unique path to success, one lesson at a time.
Joe Solari