I used to think success was about marketing, monetizing my skills, and making money on my own terms. I thought it meant a long-term grind to a better life. In a way I was right, but at the same time so completely wrong. That truth had me redefining what success meant to me.
To help explain what I mean, I’ll need to walk you through the journey I went through last year trying to learn how to market my books.
What $5 Taught Me
Making money wasn’t just about talent.
For background, I’ve spent the last twelve years becoming an expert in delivering technology. I’ve had a few mentors along the way, but I learned much of what I know through the school of hard knocks. When I started my IT services company, I was confident in our ability to deliver, but what I hadn’t realized at the time was that ability wasn’t going to create revenue. Sales and marketing would.
Then I looked at my historical book sales and the pattern became clear. I’d spent just as much time learning how to write as I did learning technology. But when I looked at my sales across 2024, I realized why one skill was paying more than the other.
I didn’t have a storytelling problem; I had a marketing problem.
What you’re seeing is how much money I made on Amazon with a single book and almost no marketing.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d tried some marketing paths. I did social media marketing, Amazon ads, Facebook ads, and Google ads. I got nowhere.
How 2025 Was Different
In 2025 I was determined to figure out what I was doing wrong. So, I read as many articles on book marketing as I could find, and watched as many YouTube videos as I could get my hands on. Practically none of the advice I found worked. Primarily because the advice was for saturated approaches or pay-per-click ads that I would need to commit nearly $1,000 to if I wanted to get any traction.
Then I found Your First 1000 Copies by Tim Grahl. The advice in that book reframed how I looked at book marketing, and became the driver for my strategy in 2025.
Later I found that newsletter ads were affordable and reached vast audiences. Better yet, those audiences wanted to be exposed to new books. So I began testing.
The two test campaigns were successful enough that I pulled the trigger and made a plan. This would be a newsletter-ad-centric approach to build visibility to the books leading up to the release of Book 3 of The Records of Eleshar, The Beast Unearthed.
What I found seemed to work!
Why $96 Made Me Realize I Was Asking the Wrong Question
I suppose the word “work” is relative. Compared to $5, $96 is a huge jump, and in that context, we succeeded.
But the revenue wasn’t the achievement.
What we got was even better than dollars. We expanded the visibility of The Records of Eleshar on Amazon and across the internet. Google AI search results now show my books when you search their names (which is no small feat for a book series with as little reach as mine). And you’re probably reading this post right now because of those marketing efforts.
The Realization That Had Me Redefining Success
When I looked at scaling the reach and sales of my series, I came to the realization that made me re-think my priorities in a way I hadn’t in a long time. I’d realized that I was never going to replace my income with book sales. That alone forced me to start redefining what success looked like.
I’m not saying this to be defeatist or to gain sympathy. It’s just a matter of fact.
Luckily, I’m not writing to replace my income. In fact, even if I never make a single dollar, I’m going to finish The Records of Eleshar. I didn’t start writing it because I wanted to write for a living (as fun as I think that’d be). I started because I love writing, and I had a story in me that had to come out.
What was strange is that realization changed absolutely none of my plans. I’m still going to write my books and I’m still going to look at ways to bring more revenue into my company Inman Media Group.
But what I don’t have to do now is sacrifice my health and sanity in pursuit of something that, frankly, I don’t need anymore.
Find Your Reason to Keep Going
I hope that as you read this, if you’re chasing a dream, that you too find a way to persevere, even when the odds are stacked against you. For me, I chose to find peace in what was realistically possible. And in that peace I was able to redefine what success meant to me.
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t strive for greatness. Having millions of people enjoying my stories would be an amazing achievement. But I’m clear about the chances.
Seth Rogan has a clip floating around that puts this into words better than I could. In the clip he says to a podcast host, “If you don’t quit, you might make it. And if you quit, you definitely won’t.”
Sometimes the Grind Isn’t What You Expect
We are often bombarded with calls to, “grind it out,” or, “get your bag,” or any number of other vapid calls to burn yourself out chasing a lottery ticket. Unfortunately, before redefining success, I found it easy to get ensnared by these promises. I’ve been the man locked alone in a room weeping over the powerlessness I felt working two jobs and 60-80 hour weeks while still falling short.
Back then, I was chasing the hustle. Trying to land on something that would finally get the bills paid and loosen my jaw muscles enough to let me stop grinding my teeth. It wasn’t until recently that I finally realized I didn’t need to do that anymore. That the grind that had worked was developing the high-value skills I’d cultivated over the last twelve years of doing my job in technology.
Redefining Success
What I guess I’m trying to say here is, you’re the only person who can define success for yourself. And just because you can’t monetize something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any value.
It’s okay if you don’t turn your woodworking hobby into a successful YouTube channel. You can create for the joy of creation. You will elevate the lives of everyone around you who is touched by your creation, and that can mean more than any business, sometimes.
It’s also okay if you strive to turn that hobby into a business. You’ll still elevate the lives of others, and you’ll make money too! You may even be able to create jobs in your community through it as well!
There’s no wrong answer when redefining success. Just don’t let other people define it for you.
