The Author Burnout Cure

Buckle up folks, you’re in for a ranty episode.

On today’s episode, I’m breaking down my personal marketing pet peeves with a firm reminder that you don’t have to market in a way that makes you miserable! Once the ranting is out of my system, I provide simple, actionable tips from my Bare Minimum Book Marketing strategy.

Reminder: Applications are open for the June 2025 cohort of The Confident Author Academy!

This 6-month group coaching program will help you break up with burnout, write consistently, access creative flow, and put the fun back in your fiction career.

Submit your application before June 12th: http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and join the June 2025 cohort go to http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here.

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!

If writing advice leaves you feeling discouraged rather than inspired, you’re not alone.

It’s normal to unintentionally use writing advice as proof that something is wrong with the way that we work. We tend to give more weight to “expert advice” than our personal lived experience of how we tell stories.

This episode will help you bring a sense of neutral curiosity to all types of writing and publishing advice so you can better evaluate whether it’s good advice for YOU and your unique brain.

Reminder: Applications are open for the June 2025 cohort of The Confident Author Academy!

This 6-month group coaching program will help you break up with burnout, write consistently, access creative flow, and put the fun back in your fiction career.

Submit your application before June 12th: http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and join the June 2025 cohort go to http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here.

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!

A quick episode this week with my off-the-cuff tips to help you prep to moderate an author panel or serve as the in-conversation partner for someone else’s book launch! 

Time Sensitive Reminders: 

The Bare Minimum Book Marketing workshop is happening today (5/21) at 6pm ET. You can register here: http://www.isabelsterling.com/minimum 

Applications are open for the June 2025 cohort of The Confident Author Academy! This 6-month group coaching program will help you break up with burnout and craft a sustainable fiction career. Apply by June 1st: http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort 

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and join the June 2025 cohort go to http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort 

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here. 

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!

There are no guarantees in publishing.

It seems an obvious statement, and yet so many authors get caught in a cycle of stressing about how they can “keep their publisher happy” in an effort to guarantee another book deal.

But there are no guarantees.

Even if you earn out your advance, meet every single deadline, and are a “pleasure to work with,” your publisher may not buy your next book.

This truth doesn’t have to feel scary. In fact, it can feel liberating when you let yourself show up for your career for YOU rather than your publisher. Listen in to learn how.

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and join the June 2025 cohort go to http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here.

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!

If getting an editor letter feels fraught, overwhelming, or stressful, you’re not alone.

Over the course of revising 13 novels, I’ve developed a streamlined process that can turn an edit letter into an effective scene-by-scene to-do list. This allows me to complete even the most massive revisions with a single pass through the manuscript, helps me trust that I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, and leaves me with a new draft that’s ready to go straight to my editor. 

Listen in for a break down of the entire 7 step process. 

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and join the June 2025 cohort go to http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort 

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here. 

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!

Failure is unavoidable when you’re trying to stretch and grow as a creative professional. You will have drafts (or entire projects) that don’t work on a storytelling level. You will have books that don’t sell on submission. Books that don’t reach as many readers as you hoped. Books that get ignored by trade reviewers.

But failure doesn’t determine the level of success that’s possible for you in the future. How well you learn (and grow!) from failure does.

Listen in to learn how to recover emotionally from failure and then evaluate what happened so you can make changes going forward.

Reminder: today is the last day to apply for the June 2025 cohort of The Confident Author Academy! Click here to submit your application.

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and join the waitlist for the June 2025 cohort go to http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here.

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!

Applications are open for the June 2025 cohort of The Confident Author Academy.

Submit your application here.

The June 2025 cohort is limited to 10 authors and applications close on April 30th.

In this episode, I share all the things you’ll learn when you join the June cohort. You’ll get a look inside the different topics covered in the Academy’s curriculum and hear how coaching supports the long-term sustainability of your career.

Whether you’re an agented writer dealing with submission stress, a debut author getting ready to launch your first book, or a multi-published author ready to create a burnout-free career, the June 2025 cohort is for you.

Apply here.

You’ve probably already heard about the concept of “refilling your creative well.” This is when writers take time after finishing a draft to focus on creative input: reading for fun, watching movies/tv, or listening to music.

But did you know that you can also increase the size of your creative well?

Increasing the size of your creative well (aka increasing your creative capacity) allows you to write more in less time and also write for longer stretches of time without feeling drained. Listen in to learn how to increase your creative capacity.

PS - I’m hosting a free workshop next week (Wed, 4/23/25 at 6pm eastern) that takes this concept of increased capacity and applies it to deadlines specifically. Click here to register for How to Thrive on Deadline.

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and join the waitlist for the June 2025 cohort go to http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here.

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!

Imagine this: You’re working on a new novel, and you’re in love with the concept. The writing is fun. The characters are intriguing. Even better, this feels new and fresh and original… Until you stumble upon a deal announcement that sound eerily familiar. Someone else has written a book with almost the exact same pitch as the one you’re writing!

Even worse, they finished their version first. They already got a book deal for it! What are you going to do??

If this happens to you, deep breath. This episode will help calm the panic screaming in your head.

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and join the waitlist for the June 2025 cohort go to http://www.isabelsterling.com/academy-cohort

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here.

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!

Submission. The point in traditional publication that authors are simultaneously impatient to get to and yet also dread experiencing. There's the agony of waiting. Refreshing your inbox a million times. Being so freaking close to achieving a big goal yet having no control over the outcome.

This episode will help normalize your experiences on submission and provide tangible tools to help you reduce sub anxiety so you can actually write something new.

PS - for help shifting the stories you tell yourself while on sub, watch the Rewriting Your Author Story workshop here.

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The publishing industry is hard. That's why I created The Confident Author Academy. My 6-month, private coaching program (+ online course) helps you build the mindset & emotional resilience you need to thrive as an author. To learn more and schedule your free enrollment call go to www.isabelsterling.com/academy.

Want access to my free monthly trainings? Sign up for my newsletter by clicking here.

DM me on Instagram & let me know what you thought of this episode!