Hi friends,

Thank you for all the lovely replies to yesterday’s email. I do want to address one thing: A few of you said you almost didn’t email me because you didn’t want to crowd my inbox.

It’s totally okay to respond to my emails. I don’t always have time to respond or respond immediately, but I do read all your replies and I appreciate them.

You can always email me :)

Now, let’s talk about overwhelm.

Something that I see regularly when working with authors, at any stage of their career, is overwhelm.

We all get overwhelmed!

But one of the reasons authors (especially newer authors or authors trying to grow to the next level) experience overwhelm is because they have so much information coming at them all at once, so many new things to learn, and they’re trying to do all the things and learn all the things all at the same time.

Let’s try something different by figuring out what stage of your publishing career you’re in and what learning and tasks are most important right now.

Because when you don’t know what stage of your author career you’re in, everything feels urgent.

Marketing feels urgent.

Branding feels urgent.

Finding readers feels urgent.

Learning ads feels urgent.

Even when you’re still trying to finish (or edit) the book.

That’s why so many writers feel stuck, scattered, or like they’re “behind,” even when they’re actually making progress.

Here’s the big idea I teach:

Author careers grow in stages. Each stage has different priorities and different kinds of work.

Very broadly, it looks like this:

• You write first
• You learn to edit
• You step into publishing
• You build visibility
• You grow readership

Problems start when we try to live in three stages at once.

For example:

• worrying about ads before the book is ready
• stressing about branding before you’ve published
• trying to “scale” when you’re still learning fundamentals

Nothing is wrong with you when that feels hard. It’s hard because it’s misaligned and, frankly, impossible.

The single most useful question you can ask as an author is:

“What stage am I in right now and what actually matters in this stage?”

That’s what I’m teaching in my free webinar this week.

​Find Your Stage: The 5 Stages of Your Author Career​

FREE live webinar

Wednesday, January 14 at 6:00 PM Eastern

⏱ One-ish hour | 🎥 Replay available for 7 days

This session is about:

• figuring out where you are
• understanding what deserves your attention now
• letting go of everything that doesn’t (yet)

It’s not about doing more. It’s about focusing better.

Want more access?

If you’d like permanent access to the replay and a written resource document that lays out all five stages clearly, there’s an optional $10 upgrade.

👉 Upgrade here​

And one more thing: if you have writer friends who constantly ask, “Am I doing this right?” or “What should I be working on?” Please forward this email or share the signup link with them.

See you next Wednesday!

~Angela