Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!
If you’ve ever dreamed of being a millionaire author, or even just want to make a living from your writing and you’re not there yet, then this episode is for you.
Today I chat with bestselling author and Indie Author Coach, Carissa Andrews, about manifesting a millionaire author career. Carissa not only shares the practical aspects of making money from your books, but also how a rapid release strategy can help you make money faster. She shares sustainable practices that we can use now to move us closer to our goals, and discusses the role that mindset and manifestation can play to boost our success, our productivity and our bank accounts.
If you want to learn more about rapid releasing make sure you check out Carissa’s Rapid Release Roadmap Course here.
You can join Carissa’s Millionaire Author Challenge here or join the waitlist for her full Millionaire Author Manifestation Course here.
To connect with Carissa make sure you visit her websites: carissaandrews.com and authorrevolution.org. Don’t forget to check out her podcast The Author Revolution Podcast, too.
If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate and review.
You can follow me on Instagram: @jobuerauthor.
Find the full transcript of this episode below.
Episode 16: Millionaire Author Mindset with Carissa Andrews
Jo: Hello, my lovelies. Welcome back to another episode of Alchemy for Authors. Now, if you’ve ever dreamed of being a millionaire author, and really who hasn’t, or even just wanted to make a living from your writing and you’re not there yet, then this episode is for you. Today, I’m chatting with my friend and now mentor, Carissa Andrews.
Carissa is an award-winning and internationally best-selling indie author with more than 20 books published. She’s the CEO of Author Revolution, an online academy dedicated to helping indie authors become publishing powerhouses. And, as the host of the Author Revolution Podcast, Carissa dives into topics from step-by-step strategies for indie authors, to mindset techniques that elevate authors to manifest their millionaire author destiny.
So, in this episode, we chat about the practical aspects of making money from your books and how a rapid release strategy can help you get there faster. And no, we’re not talking about releasing 12 books a year. No one wants to add burnout to their author journey, but instead, we talk about sustainable practices and the role that mindset and manifestation can play to boost our success, our productivity and our bank accounts.
Now, I am a huge fan of Carissa’s. So, as you can imagine, I was super excited to chat with her. I’m also a student of her Rapid Release Roadmap program and her Millionaire Author Challenge that we talk about in this episode. So do make sure that you check out the show notes for links to these amazing courses if they interest you.
But for the meantime, if you’re ready, grab yourself a drink, find a comfy chair, sit back and enjoy the show.
Welcome, Carissa, to the show. I’m so excited to have you here.
Carissa: Oh my gosh. I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Jo: I was just saying to you how I am totally fan-girling. Just so my listeners have an idea. You only came into my sphere, probably, maybe January or so. And it was through the lovely Emma Dhesi, who I’ve interviewed on this show. And one of her newsletters had mentioned you, and I’d signed up for one of your little challenges, and then you were just everywhere.
Carissa: It’s weird, how it goes like that, isn’t it?
Jo: It’s the universe, or those social media algorithm. I don’t even know, but you’re just everywhere and I was just totally vibing with everything that you say. So I’m so excited for you to share some of your wealth of knowledge with the audience today, but just to get into it, if you can just start off with talking a little bit about how you came to be on this amazing, crazy, wacky awesome indie author journey.
Carissa: Absolutely. Well originally I’d never anticipated ever in a million years that I would be writing. Um, I grew up in a household where my mom was, uh, an acrylic painter. And so we’ve always been very creative in our household. We’ve always done art. We’ve always done other things. And I kind of went the graphic design route because I was like, my dad’s a techie. He worked for IBM, my mom’s a painter. So I was like, oh, this is what I’m going to be. I’m going to be a graphic designer. Except I hated it. I mean, I hated the corporateness of it.
And I remember having a conversation with my best friend in 20… I think it must’ve been 2010 and I’m like, oh, you know, Sherry, I just, I don’t know what to do. I, I’m not liking this thing anymore. What do I do? And she’s like, well, you’ve always loved to write. Why don’t you just start a blog and certainly figuring out what you want to do on this blog thing. Oh, that’s a, that’s a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. I could blog and I started blogging and the more I blog, the more it kind of turned into, I don’t know, kind of weird wacky information about like, how I view the world, in fact, the first blog post was actually, um, I think it was called something like the internet is the Akashic records.
That’s how weird and eclectic I’ve been forever. Right. It’s like, it was just this crazy thing. And, um, she ended up kind of pushing me or nudging me towards writing a book and I never, wanted to actually write. It was one of those weird journeys where I had an aunt, I still have an aunt, she’s still alive, who writes and who was struggling really hard to try to get into the traditional, at that time, market space. And I was like, do I want, do I want that hassle? Is that really what I wanted to do? And then the indie author, boom revolution kind of came about, Amanda Hocking kind of blew things wide open. And I was like, Hey, this could, this could actually work. I could, I could vibe with this. And so it was kind of, that’s where it started.
I haven’t looked back since, and during that process, I guess fell down the rabbit hole of all the different loves of this journey, of this scope of being an indie author and everything that we can do or get to do or get to explore. And so then it kind of spilled over into wanting to teach others how to do these things where they’re not getting so overwhelmed because I know I definitely got overwhelmed and it was like, okay, we can do this easier. We can do this better. Let’s condense these things. That’s, let’s focus on the things that are working the best and that’s how Author Revolution was born. And it’s kind of just continued to snowball from there into me being this weird mix of indie author and indie author coach. And I don’t even know. And here I am.
Jo: That’s so cool. So you have actually been in this industry for a while. Am I right?
Carissa: Yep.
Jo: Eleven years? I don’t, I can’t remember.
Carissa: Yeah. 2010 is when I first started writing, um, Pendomus with the intent of publishing it. So it was, I guess it would have been October, 2010 when I got the idea for Pendomas. Um, so it’s been, yeah, 11, I guess, 11 years since I started, but I took a little bit of a hiatus after Pendomus was published because I got divorced and remarried and we had a kid. And so I kind of consider my author career, like the actual author itself career rebooted in 2017. But like the entire time I was still learning, I was kind of going through the internet marketing courses. I was learning more about, um, story arcs and strategy for that. And I was learning more about just how to write in general, but how to plot, how to do all the things. And then my next two books came up rapid released in 2017. And I haven’t, I haven’t stopped since. So I think I have 20, 20 some odd books out.
Jo: My gosh. And I saw that you’re an international bestselling author.
Carissa: Yes. I have three, three separate times. Actually. It’s been so crazy because the first time it was, I swear it was a fluke, but I think I stumbled upon promo stacking before it had a name, is what happened. And so I put a bunch of these promos together and I was like, what if I did this? And I kind of just, I don’t know, I don’t even think David Gaughran was talking about it yet. And so, you know, that, that man knows everything about promo stacking and adds, I swear. But, uh, I did it and it became and, Pendomus actually became an international bestseller in 2018.
And then I had an anthology hit international bestseller and The Secret Legacy, one of the Windhaven Witches also did. So it’s been a crazy wild ride so far. And we’ll see. I’m actually in an anthology this year that looks like it might hit USA Today Bestseller already. It’s a charity anthology that I got tapped for and it’s for helping out survivors in the Ukraine war. And so we’ll see what happens there. Who knows. I mean, it was like the universe just plonked it in my lap and it might actually manifest into something even bigger. It’s like, how was this so easy? How did this happen?
Jo: Well, awesome. And this is why I really wanted you on this podcast because you know your stuff. Yeah. There’s just so much that we can learn from you. And I totally agree. The universe really does help us, when we’re following those things that give us that spark, that light us up, when we’re doing that thing that we’re supposed to do, the universe really comes through for us and, you know, aligns those situations and everything to work.
Carissa: Absolutely.
Jo: You had mentioned that you do, and I know a little bit about this, but you, you do rapid release as your way of keeping the books flowing and everything like that. And I know you’ve got this amazing program that I’m just starting to get into myself, just the start, the Rapid Release Roadmap. Can you talk a little bit about your philosophy around this and where this came from and why.
Carissa: Absolutely. It was quite the journey. So originally, you know, when you first get into the indie space, if you don’t quite know about rapid release and it plonks in your lap, maybe you fall into the 20booksto50K group, or you hear someone else talking about rapid release. It’s very easy to fall into this mindset that, oh, okay, rapid releasing means a book a month. Holy cow, how are these authors doing it? And I know that was definitely the case for me back in 2017. That’s how I’m pretty sure I fell into it. It must have been around May because it was before the two Pendomus books, the last two books came out, and that’s why I ended up rapid releasing them the way that I did. And I was like, okay, how do I keep this momentum going? How do I continue to do this? And I just found it very, I don’t know if stressful is the word, but definitely stressful. Um, it was, it was very overwhelming trying to, I remember talking to my husband, I’m like, if I ever think I’m going to do this ever again, tell me no that this is not an option, ’cause no, this does not work.
And I’m someone who can move pretty fast. I understand the process I’ve been in the publishing industry. Actually, I’ve been in the publishing industry for… before 2010. I was, my first job was in a bookstore, my second job was in a, as a publisher working for a publishing house. Third job was working for printers. Then I went into graphic design. So it’s like, I’ve literally tapped danced around this whole area. And so I know how it works and I’m like, don’t let me do this again.
And I was talking with, um, one of my students, we, we turned out to be students of each other’s work. So he’s was teaching me how to become more an internet marketing person. And I was teaching him more how to write and publish his books. And he’s like, you know what? We really need a course on rapid releasing. I can do that. Yeah, I could do that. Sure. You know, cause he was, he was talking more about the, the juggling aspects of how do you juggle when you have multiple books all coming out because it’s, it seems like a lot. And it is And so I was like, okay, I can organize this. I’m a double Virgo, I’ve got this. And the more I was digging into it, and the more I was actually doing it at the same time, the more I’m thinking this should not be a legal thing. Like we should not, we should not be teaching this at all. People should not be trying to do this. They are going to go crazy.
And so Rapid Release Roadmap ended up transforming from just teaching people how to rapid release in general to, being able to learn how to do it in a sustainable way where you can publish four books a year, because that seemed to be the number that was much more doable for everyone, myself included. When you have another job, when you have a family, when you’ve got other things going on and you want to actually have a life. And enjoy it. And so that was kind of how the whole process of I’ll teach you how to do four books a year. You can obviously use the process to ramp it up and do more if you’d like, or even do less, if you’d like. It’s the same process, it’s just understanding how writing and publishing faster will help you earn more quickly without obviously going too crazy with it. That was the key for me.
There’s many studies that Written Word Media has put out Clayton Noblit is awesome. He’s done on where, you know, we’ve learned that athors who are earning six figures, seven figures, they have somewhere between and 38 books. And so like that sweet spot between the 60,000 and a hundred thousand is 22 to 28 books in their back catalogue. And so if we want to get to that point, if, if we deem that is kind of where we’ll, you know, get up that keel and then start sliding back down at where the ball starts rolling, then we need to do that quicker, but we don’t want to do it in a way that’s going to drive us absolutely bonkers in the process, because it it’s gonna take a while to get there and you just don’t need to, you don’t need to kill yourself to do it. You have to enjoy the process, is kind of my philosophy on it.
Jo: I totally agree. And I think burnout is so, so prevalent in the Indie Industry really, just because there is so many people out there and I don’t know how they do it. Um, but yeah, that one book a month and at the moment, I’m not even, I I’m thinking I’m going to get one, maybe two out this year. Yeah. Yeah. It’s insane. So for the people, some of the people listening and they’re like, oh my gosh, I need 22 to 38 books in my back log, that’s going to take forever and I want this amazing author life now? What are you going to say to them?
Carissa: Well, when they say they want it now, then I would say, what are the beliefs that you’re holding right now that are keeping you from that? Because I truly believe that we can become a vibrational match to anything we want truly. So if we, if we wanted it to, I mean, this is how those unicorns exist in my mind, you know what I mean? Those ones that are like, I have three books and I’m making $40,000 a month right now. And you’re like, how did that happen? You know what I mean? I think we put up these resistance blocks or these, um, ideas of how it should look for us or how it’s going to look for us or how hard it needs to be for us. I know that I’m guilty of that one where it’s like, I like a challenge. I like to dig down into it and try to figure it out and like be the one that goes, I know how it works. And that usually translates to it’s a lot harder than it needs to be. So if you can make it easy, like if you can take a look at things, Um, the genres that are doing super well, mystery, thriller romance, and you go, you know what? I’ve got really great ideas. And I would like to write in one of those three categories, you will probably earn your money way faster than if you were writing a YA paranormal romance. Okay. It just depends on, you know, where you’re feeling called to.
And if, you know, for me, it’s like I knew very early on, I could make a lot of money a lot faster, if I went into romance, I just wasn’t called to it. I was called to write urban fantasy. I was called to write paranormal fantasy. And so I very, I don’t know, very early in my career, I think I even wrote a blog post about it and hopefully I can swear, and so if I can’t swear, beep it out. It’s called Fuck Being Relevant because everyone was talking about relevancy, at that time. It must’ve been probably right around 2016, 2017. It was like why? We are here to be creative for a reason. We’re here to start digging into our own thoughts, our own beliefs, our own mysteries that we’re trying to unravel in our head. And they come up through our creativity and our books and everything that we’re doing. And so, no, I don’t want to be relevant. Maybe I’ll be relevant 10 years from now, when people are asking the questions I’m already asking now, and if I don’t write the book, now I will have to write it then or someone else will have written it.
And so I really believe that we’re guided to write the things we’re meant to write, and it will have its moment whenever that is. Maybe it’s not now. Maybe it’s not, you know, tomorrow. And for that person who’s like, oh my gosh, 22 to 28 books, that’s part of the process of learning to love the journey, learning to love the process and witnessing the manifestations of that destination coming closer as you’re writing those books. Really appreciating that, okay, now I’m at book four, holy cow. I have four books and they’re all doing well. Or I’m able to see how this is getting better and better for me, or I’m able to, you know, start to, to earn more so that I can buy covers for myself. You’re, you’re able to see the manifestation coming in because you’re, you’re seeing that growth. And if it happens too quickly, I don’t know about you if you’ve seen this, but if it happens too fast, I almost kind of feel like many authors aren’t ready for that kind of success. And so they can’t sustain it like afterwards. And so if you want a long-term career and one that you can continue to go forward with, sometimes it’s better if that progression is just a little bit slower, so that you can take in the vibes take in that, um, shift in energy and take in like how you’re changing and evolving as an author.
Jo: Oh, I love it. I love that. And it’s very much like you hear all the time, you know, people that win lotto or, you know, come into big amounts of money and then within a year they’ve lost it all or are in a worse situation than when they began.
Carissa: Absolutely.
Jo: Yeah. If you’re not in that alignment with what you’re wanting to bring in. Yeah, I’d say that’s not going to happen or it will happen, but you won’t be able to sustain that, like you said. So one of the things that I love about your teachings is that you really marry that practical aspect to that mindset of manifestation, which is so important. So with your rapid release strategy, and you’re saying like four books a year is the sweet spot. Now, is that, do you think, accomplishable for majority of people? Because I know you are a very busy person from, with that kind of seen about you, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got a husband, you’ve got five kids, I think. Do you have dogs?
Carissa: Oh yep, we have two dogs.
Jo: Yep. It’s like, it’s two kids right there. You’ve got a podcast. You’ve got these amazing courses and you’re writing books. Are you still putting out four a year or are you putting out more than that?
Carissa: Oh, no. I try to stick with four. Every once in a while my PA Jenny tries to make me go faster and I’ll put something on the calendar tentatively, and then I’m like, nope, that’s not going to happen. So yeah, I do try to really stick within the four books. Every once in a while it’ll be five because I did a box set omnibus edition, but really that’s, that’s the gist of it because I I’m doing my own audio books as well. I love, I love multimedia versions of things. So that there’s a lot of other things, other pieces that are kind of all going all at the same time, and it’s just so much fun that I can’t, I don’t know, I must be multi-passionate in so many ways because I just can’t seem to go, nope, I’m just going to write. I’ve just never been able to do that. I have to, you know, play with images and do book covers for myself or social media images, or I have to, I don’t know, I’m all over the place when it comes to that sort of thing. So yes. Four is still the number.
Jo: Oh, my gosh, I just, I keep having so many questions. I’m like, oh, I’ve got to ask you this, I’ve got to ask you that… So I’m going back to the 22 to 38 books to fast-forward that like, is that new books or can they be like, be a part of an anthology, or if you put a book out as audio book, and that would count like if it was in a different format?
Carissa: I think it kind of depends on the book. So if you have a book that really you were able to market well, because you had the funds to, to put into its marketing campaigns, or if it, for some reason, you know, went off like wild fire because a tik tokker, you know, book tokker person sung its praises, I mean, it could literally be, you know, three books if you wanted it to be, or if you manifested it. But it could be, you know, I think what they are talking about in those surveys is literally the one book. So whether it has multiple formats doesn’t matter ,and it doesn’t matter,I don’t think if it’s an omnibus or if it’s an anthology that you’re a part of because each book is separate, so each book is going to have its own marketing behind it and its own strategy. So that’s still counts. It’s still a part of it. And sometimes the anthologies can do really well because you’ve got the energies of all those other authors incorporated into it. So then you’ve got more marketing magic behind you, kind of getting those books out there and then more eyes are becoming turned towards us that they can see what you’re doing. So it just kind of depends on what you’re writing too. Genres matter. A little bit, I guess. I mean, like I said, there’s those top three that really always do well. And so if you want to do well very quickly, often I would say pick one of those, you know, mystery, thriller, romance. Otherwise it really just depends on your writing. It depends on your love of it, your passion of it, how you’re sharing it with others, you could do so many things and it could take off so much faster than that, too. So.
Jo: Absolutely. Oh, that’s cool. So, I’m skipping back again now, but time, because like I said, you’re so busy and like you were saying, you, you know, you just love doing all these amazing things, and you’re multi-passionate, and you’ve got all these cool things on the go, any time hacks for other people or people who are maybe just starting on this journey, maybe still have, um, you know, like their day job or something going on as well? Do you have any of your best kind of time hacks for getting those books done and all the other stuff, because there’s so many hats that us as indie authors wear, so how do we fit it all in?
Carissa: I think that the first thing you have to do is prioritize. So if you’re working another job, obviously that that’s going to have a priority, it’s going to be priority number one, and everything else has to kind of fit around it. And so if you’re trying to fit writing in, and the marketing hat seems a little bit too much, or, you know, the, you know, trying to plan out the next book seems too much, focus on one thing at a time. So focus on the book you’re working on now and give yourself those timeframe allotments. So whether you’re sprinting for an hour or you’re sprinting for 15 minutes, or if you go, okay, Monday, Wednesday, Fridays are my days to write. And so I will write until I have X number of words written. However you want to do it and it works best for you and your schedule. It doesn’t have to be hard, but I think we kind of trick ourselves to make it harder than it really is.
And there’s this law. It’s called Parkinson’s Law. That work will expand or contract to fit the time allotted for it. So if you’re going to just say, oh, I’m going to finish this book someday, but you’re not going to give yourself a few parameters. Your brain goes, Ooh, the sky’s the limit, I can just take 900 years because I can explore all these really cool things. And then you do. So if you give yourself kind of those little boxes, creativity actually enjoys boxes. We like being boxed in with rules because then our creativity has boundaries that can bump up against. And so if you give yourself an hour or you give yourself 15 minutes right now, and then you can go have an ice cream or, you know, whatever, go watch a movie for a little bit, then your brain will go, okay, I’ve got to focus.This is the time I have, and I have to get something in here. I wouldn’t put so much stress and pressure on how many words or how fast at first, but just focus on the enjoyment of letting those sprints really be the creative flow that you want them to be. And then you’ll start to enjoy doing them. And it won’t be like, oh, now I gotta go write my book too. I’ve done so many things today. My brain is so tired. You need to train it to be excited about that process first and then start kind of feeding it more about like, okay, brain, you love doing this, so now we’re going to do 2000 words in two hours. Let’s go. So it just depends on how it’s, how you set it up, but your brain will comply with what you’re training it to do.
Jo: Love it. I love those little brain tricks there. Those tricking of the brain. That’s fantastic.
Carissa: That’s right. Absolutely.
Jo: So like I was saying before you really marry that mindset into your strategy around releasing books in this author career and everything you’ve created for yourself. And I know that you’ve been moving more and more into this wonderful idea of the millionaire author. Of being a millionaire author and helping other indie authors out there become millionaire authors. And some people are going to be listening to this and going, but no, it’s not possible to be a millionaire author, but can you tell us what set you on this path of wanting to really get us authors out of that silly mentality of we can’t earn any money?
Carissa: Yeah, well, for me, it was in the very beginning I started writing and I did it for the love of writing, but of course you’re like, I want to be the next J K Rowling. I’m going to be the next J K Rowling. Right. Or Stephanie Meyer. I don’t care which one I’ll be one or one or the other. And you know, your books are good and you know, they’re awesome. But you have these little, I don’t know if they’re, um, ingrained from childhood or if they’re picked up along the way, something weird happens, and then all of a sudden you start doubting your ability to earn money and it starts to impact your author career. You might have the best book on the planet, but because you doubt your money situation, or you doubt your ability to earn more, or you doubt your ability for your situation to improve. You lock yourself from being able to earn more with your writing or to earn more with your art. That’s why a lot of artists, that’s why we had that whole starving artist mentality in a lot of ways.
And for me, I kept seeing over and over and over again, I don’t know, this prevailing mindset of this poverty mindset where indie authors just don’t feel that they can invest in themselves. They don’t feel that they can invest in their learning or in their covers or in their editing until it proves itself. Or until they, I don’t know, there’s like this magical, like they think there’s, I dunno, there, something’s going to light the way and it’s going to be like, now you can start earning money from your books. Maybe they have to become like a better author before they can really push it, whatever. Sometimes it’s even, they’re worried about their writing and they’re not sure that they can market it because I’m not sure the writing is, is there, or the quality is there.
And so for me, it’s like you can’t lift someone out of the poverty mindset by coming down to their level, you have to elevate them by showing them what’s possible. And sometimes when you show them, what’s possible beyond what they even think is possible, it shocks them enough, what, what are you even on about? I have gotten so many comments where they’re like, are you crazy, a millionaire author? That’s just like the most, you know, never, and then some of them, I don’t ever want to become a millionaire. That’s never been my thing. That’s great. You don’t have to be. The whole point is that you’re trying to get, train your mindset to think bigger, to be bigger, to embrace, whatever destiny comes, your way to embrace, whatever amount of abundance is open and available to you. It doesn’t have to be, you know, oh, I’m only going to be able to earn $35,000 this year because that’s what I made for the past 10 years. You know what I mean?
It’s all about reaching for, for more and knowing that you are worthy and capable of it and that once you can unlock some of those, limiting beliefs and get rid of them. You can then reach and strive for more and you can start seeing the evidence of it coming into your reality.
Jo: That’s awesome, because I think so many of us, even sometimes we begin this journey because we want to leave our day jobs, or we, you know, we want to be doing that thing that we love to replace the income that we’re doing through things that maybe we don’t love quite as much. So there’s that want there, but it doesn’t always align with what we believe is possible for us. And so this is what I think is really fascinating is you’re pretty much saying that anyone can live that life, can have that money, can make that income, whether it’s a million dollars or six figure income or whatever you want, you just need to kind of change your mindset and get into alignment with what you’re desiring.
Carissa: Absolutely.
Jo: So how do we get into alignment? What do we do?
Carissa: That is the most basic question, but the most powerful question, but the most ick question. Yes. The best way to get into alignment when it comes to those things is honestly, is to be constantly striving to find your joy. So rather than focusing on, why am I not there? Why is it not here yet? Why can’t I do this thing? You know, I’ve been working on this. I know my, my job. My writing is good, but it’s not here yet. It’s not here yet. You know, why can’t I earn more? Why aren’t my ads converting? Any of that kind of mindset is actually keeping you stuck. It’s keeping resistance to what you really want, which is obviously money flowing effortlessly to you. It’s keeping it back. And so when you focus on better feeling thoughts, better feeling vibes, telling a better story about what your author career looks like and is going to evolve into you’re going to manifest it because.
The universe works with the law of attraction. You have these laws out there. And when you’re starting to think thoughts, you’re creating a vibration. That vibration becomes a belief structure and your belief structure does a bigger vibration because now that’s your predominant thought system. That’s what you’re constantly operating under. So your subconscious mind is always at play here and it works way more powerfully than your conscious mind. So if you can be training your mind to be working more towards, what’s the next best thought, you know, you don’t always have to be positive. I’ll tell you right now this morning, I was not very positive.
I had a dog he’s been sick like all week because he decided to eat something in our compost bin and it made him sick. And so he has just not been happy. And so all week I’ve been having to deal with a sick dog and I’m just like, so over it. And so I recognize in myself that I’m getting frustrated with him and I’m getting irritated that he is you know, he’s still sick. And it has been a week of this. And then I’m like, okay, so I’m frustrated right now. Where on the emotional, like, what is my next best thought? I’m like, okay, well, I can have empathy for that. Everybody’s done something, ate something that they didn’t think was gonna make them sick and it made them sick. You know, maybe they drank too much. Maybe they ate something and it gave them food poisoning, whatever. And so it’s like, okay, now I can empathize a little bit with him. I, I get where he’s coming from. You know, he’s a dog, you know, he’s a boy on top of it, you know, whatever. So it’s like you reach for these higher feelings, thoughts, and the next thing, you know, you’re feeling better about the dog. You’re feeling better about where you’re at. And it’s like, okay, now I can go on with my day. It’s not so. We all have these things that are going to bring her vibration down into an emotional scale. That’s a little bit lower, but if we reach for things that are higher and even if it’s just a little bit better. So if you’re, if you’re in this discouragement phase of your author career where you’re feeling like nothing is working, I feel so stuck. I don’t know how to break through this. And if you just go, okay, well, I might not know how to do this now, but I know that I can find the answers. I know that the answers are out there and it’s figure-out-able yay, Marie Forleo. I’m so glad she coined that phrase. And I love it because it is everything is figure-out-able. Everything will come to you at the right moment. If you stop beating yourself up over it and allow it to come in. And so it really comes down to allowing everything to come to you, your, your, um, inspirational thoughts, the next inspired action to help you with your marketing, the next level of like, what should your next series be? All of this stuff will come to you. If you just stop, you know, being the monkey on your back and putting yourself down and start envisioning everything’s working out in my favor. Everything I need is always coming to me. I can see evidence of it all around me. I can see how this awesome career has continued to expand for me. And I’m, I’m loving how I’m doing everything. And so the more you tell the story of what you want to become, the more that becomes your vibration, and it has to come through.
Jo: Awesome. I love that. And I think you’re absolutely right that finding that evidence and we can, we can, we can look, we can see how far we’ve come from you know, the first book that we put out, or if we’re growing our mailing list, you know, we had that one first subscriber and now we’ve got however many thousand or whatever. Yeah. We’ve all come so far on our journey. Absolutely. And I’ve heard you say this, uh, at other times, but you quite often coined the phrase, the universe always says yes.
Carissa: Yes.
Jo: And I completely agree with it. It’s with a way, decide that we want those happy, positive thoughts of, yeah, I’m going to say the money, the money’s coming to me, my books are going to sell really well, or we’re going to be all my, you know, the universe will bring that to us or we can be stuck in the why isn’t my book selling and the universe hears, books not selling. And we get exactly what we asked for. Right.
Carissa: So absolutely we live in an inclusion based universe. And so everything that we’re trying to explore or become or see, do, have, every time we’re asking for something, the answer is always immediately, yes, because, we are here to expand and to learn these things. And so if we want our books to do well, the answer is already, yes. We just have to go, okay, how do I get that to come to me? What alignment do I need to have and hold in the knowing that it’s already mine. And honestly, that’s just, it it’s like if you, it’s like, I think I gave this example on the zoom call that we had the other day for the Millionaire Author Challenge, where we were talking about whatever we put out there, because the universe always says, yes, we’re going to get exactly what we think we deserve or what we perceive as, yes. So for example, if you are one person who, like let’s say for you having a hundred books a month sold is amazing. It’s the most incredible thing that you would be thrilled out of your head, happy, if you sold a hundred books, but for someone else a hundred books would mean they’re like failing at life. You know what I mean? So mindset is so different. It just depends on like, what does success mean for you? What, what will happiness mean for you? It will increase, everything will increase if that’s what you desire, if that’s what you are setting into motion. And that’s what you’re looking for. But if you’re looking for, oh, it’s not happening, or, oh, I’m failing or everything is poor. You know? I know a woman who was selling something like 6,000 books a month and she thought she was failing if, if a new release sold less than that. And it was just like, wow. Okay. So I feel like I’m doing pretty dang good, if I sell a thousand for a new release right now. It’s always a part of your mindset about, you know, whether you think you can or think you can’t, I think it was Henry Ford that said that, you’re right. So if you’re going to tell yourself that this is going to be hard, it’s going to be hard. If you can tell yourself that it’s going to be easy, it’s going to be easy. And the universe is always going to give you exactly the vibration that you’re putting out there.
So if you’re, if you’re doing that whole, this is going to be so hard. The universe says, oh, you want hard? Here’s hard. Or if you want it to be so easy that. You’ll just be like, where did this even come from? The universe will be like easy. Yes, here you go. So it’s the universe always says yes. And I can’t say that I coined it, I’m pretty sure that was Abraham Hicks, but thank you. And, um, who knows if it came from beyond further back than that, but for me it was Abraham Hicks. And so it’s just amazing to me to see the evidence of it though. When you start to look around at what you’ve created in your own life, whether it’s good or bad, how your desires or your belief system, or your thoughts, brought about the thing that you were living?
Jo: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And so the question then is like, I mean, if we know that we can attract kind of negative stuff into our lives, you know, when you wake up and you’re having a bad day and then everything seems to go wrong and we’re in that bad funk.
Carissa: Yeah.
Jo: Why not shift that thinking and bring in the good stuff?
Carissa: Absolutely.
Jo: You get that evidence all the time that we can bring on the bad stuff. So it’s just that shift of thinking. And I’m really trying to embrace this year, that would Easy, because I do believe things are supposed to be so much easier than we make them. Writing that book is supposed to be so much easier than we quite often allow it to be, making that money is supposed to be so much easier. And so, I totally agree with you where you were saying, you know, whether we believe it’s going to be hard or it’s going to be easy. That’s what we get.
Carissa: Yes. And even if you subconsciously think, I just like a challenge, the universe will go, guess what? This will be a challenge for you have fun. Here’s this big mess of knot untangle it.
Jo: So we need to be very, very careful with our thoughts, People. Like we just really do. We really do. So I’m also in the process of reading, um, you’re, you’ve got a book, Write Frame of Mind where you, I think, go a lot more into training your brain, to align with where our goals are at. So kind of combating that imposter syndrome and all those things that anybody in the creative field, anybody in general kind of comes up.
Carissa: Especially high achievers. The imposter syndrome is just notorious for high achievers because we just have never been, I don’t know, taught or trained that these things crop up and that it’s okay. That we’re not waiting for like some magical unicorn to come dancing out and go, okay, now you’re ready. It’s literally like we put these high expectations on ourselves and then wonder why we feel blocked all the time.
Jo: Absolutely. So what does your daily routine look like then? Because, I mean, you’ve got, like I said, you’ve got so much on the go, but do you have a kind of mindset practice or something that you kind of go to or start your day with or do throughout the day or when you’re writing a book?
Carissa: Oh, absolutely. Yep. So for me, it’s evolved. Um, when I was really kind of in that overwhelment phase, right, I would just go like, I’d get up, get the kids out the door and I’d go straight to work. And I found when I did that, I always felt like there was never enough time. I was always trying to get something organized, together or whatever. And I finally realized I’m like, this is not how I want to feel. This is not the vibe I want. And so probably about two or three years ago, I started implementing a morning routine where I would get up, we’d get the kids out the door and then I would sit down for the first hour after that reading, it evolved, it went from reading a chapter in my non-fiction book and a chapter in a fiction book every single morning, because you can usually spend 40 minutes, ‘cause that’s roughly what it would take 40 minutes to an hour to do those two chapters in the morning. And then you move on with your day and kind of leave that to stew in and set you up for success.
And so for me, it would be, it was originally things like the non-fiction would be like Launch, um, or it would be, you know, How to StoryBrand or how to, you know, whatever the nonfiction book in my career field would be, in our career field. And then it kind of started to evolve more into like money mindset. And I started falling into like Denise Duffield Thomas’ realm and then Amanda Francis realm. And now Abraham. And all of the amazing stuff that they’ve put out. And so I will sit there for the first half an hour listening or reading, or sometimes both. I have audio books of most of the Abraham Hicks stuff, and then reading them at the same time. So they get kind of that double whammy to kind of embed it in my brain. And then once that chapter is done or that section, or however time allotment is, some of Abraham Hicks, his books don’t have chapters, they just have sections. So it’s like you kind of stop wherever you decide to stop. Then I’ll move on to my fiction book because it’s important.
I think for us as authors to continue to read for pleasure, and whether you’re reading for pleasure in your own genre, or if it’s a different genre, it really doesn’t matter. But as long as it’s bringing you enjoyment and you’re being able to get into those books and remember why reading is so much fun. You’re going to remember why it will be fun for your readers as well. And so I spend my time, that the other half hour reading and doing whatever, um, from that point forward, the next hour I’ll spend, like I’m learning something. If I’m in a challenge or if I’m in a course, I’ll give myself like an hour and I will go through some of the material in that course for the next hour, so that I have that process down. After that, I go through like my client work. I have a few, I still have a few freelance clients actually that I’ve had for years and years and years. And haven’t been able to, to let them go. And I, I really don’t want to, because they’re such lovely people. So I do their social media stuff for them.
And so I do that first thing in the morning and I get that over with and done. And then I do my own social media and get that over with and done. I like to batch content together because when you batch it, your brain is already in that mode. And you’re, you’re capable of doing it a lot faster than if you like, okay, I’m going to do this person’s social media, then I’m going to try to write a chapter, and then I’m gonna come back and do my social media. And then when you do that, you’re scattering your energy all over the place. So batch as much as. Once I get the social media stuff done. It really depends on the day. So like on Tuesdays, it’s always podcast day. So I spend the majority of the day getting either the podcast recorded or getting the video edited or getting the interview edited, whatever the case might be. And then doing all of the stuff that goes along with the podcast and getting it wrapped up and ready to go. If I do it really quickly, then I’m like, woo hoo afternoon, to be able to do some writing.
And so that’s what I do. I found for me that I liked to get my task list done mostly in the morning because that’s where I am probably the most efficient at doing multiple things really quickly. So if I have to switch those gears, like I’m in high school or whatever, you know, go to class A and class B and class C, I can do that quickly in the morning. And then in the afternoon I have then that big block of time, whether it’s two hours or four hours to sit and just write and kind of really ruminate with what it is I’m trying to. Bring out for my writing. And I usually, if I’m in the audio book production part of it, I will do one chapter a day as well, where I will record and master the chapter. So that way, if I have a, an audio book that I’m doing, it doesn’t feel like I have to do it all in one go. I’m just like one that, you know, it’s one chapter today and it’s like 40 minutes from start to finish. No big deal done. And it goes, it goes on until that way I can be more productive with the audio book part as well.
So it really just kind of comes down to seeing what works for you and batching the content in ways that will keep you productive. But knowing that you can take breaks. And if you’re not feeling the vibe of it to actually do that, because you can, you can do more harm to your, your vibration, to your books, to your stories than if you’re trying to like, just force it. You know, if you force it, it’s, it’s just not going to work out or it’s not going to come out, yeah, as good as it could. So, yeah, so I just kind of keep coming back around to it.
And when I’m writing actually, um, I have a binaural app on my phone, so I, I turn on binaural beats underneath any music that goes with whatever book I’m writing. So it always, I always crank it up to, um, I think it’s as high as it goes for the most part. And so it it’s in like that ideation vibe and I’m able to just kinda get my writing done and get on with my day.
Jo: That’s amazing. I have, I’ve heard a little bit about that. So it’s, um, it’s like a beat or something that’s almost in the back of your mind or something. Is that kind of what it is? And it just helps you.
Carissa: Yeah, so it’s a subliminal frequency, it sounds like a beat. Like when you get down into the, I can’t remember if it started. It’s like, I’m so terrible with remembering the names for that. Like, you know, beta, delta, gamma, theta. I think theta’s as high as it goes. Um, so that’s where I’m usually at for when I’m listening to books. But when it’s, when it’s vibing that fast, it almost sounds like a solid sound because it’s going, you know, really quick. Or if you’re going, if you’re trying to listen to meditate, for instance, you’re going to go down way down on the other end. And so it’ll be like, woo, woo. Sort of, it sounds really slow. And, you’re able to kind of train it. What it’s meant to do is train your brainwaves to where it is you actually want to be. So if you’re trying to fall asleep, if you’re trying to meditate, those lower vibrations are going to be better for you. Or if you’re trying to ideation something, create something, then you’re going to want those to be up higher, to help you come into more, um, alignment with your brain and how you bring in all of that creative information. But it does it, it just goes into the background. You don’t really notice it or hear it once the music is playing.
Jo: That’s cool. I like that. That’s such a neat idea.
Carissa: It’s great. That’s really cool.
Jo: So do you end up working on your novels and writing every day? Or…
Carissa: Almost every day. Yeah. And for me, it’s like, I’m of the mindset that even 10 words is better than no words. So if I, if there’s a day where I’m just not really feeling it and I’m like, I got nothing for this one, I will still go in and just try to get a few words in, because you never know, sometimes you go in and you’re like, I’m only going to do. Five minutes worth of this. And if it’s not working, then, you know, whatever I’m doing, moving on. And sometimes you get into it after five minutes, 10 minutes. And the next thing you know, you’ve written the whole chapter. You’re like, where did that even come from? Because I was not feeling this when I was sitting down to do it. So if you don’t try sometimes and give yourself that like 10 minutes. You might be missing out on words that could actually be coming out of you and, and way more than you anticipated. So I have this, like, I think my husband’s actually the one that started it, where it’s like, he, he does stuff around our house, we’re in the process of remodeling. And so if there’s an aspect of his remodeling stuff that he’s just not feeling it, he’s like I’ll give myself 10 minutes, and if I don’t like it, I don’t care, I’m moving on to something else. And so it’s, his mindset has kind of come over to me and I, I do the same thing as well
Jo: It’s such a good idea. And that’s such a great tip. Whenever people are struggling to get to get their words. I do that and I set, um, I have this little app, I think it’s called flora or something like that. And so you kind of set a time and then that’s my time that I’m going to be butt in chair writing and I can not touch my phone. I, you not do anything else, but that for that time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s just one of those cute little tricks. I don’t want to kill a tree. Right?
Carissa: It’s to plant a little forest, if you get them all grown. Yeah. That’s cool.
Jo: Yeah. So I, I love that as an idea of, yeah, just give yourself 10 minutes or whatnot and focus and then see where that goes, because you’re absolutely right. Sometimes the inspiration can come and you just run with it.
Carissa: Absolutely. And, and if worse comes to worse, I mean, 10 words is still better than no words that you have 10 more words than you had yesterday.
Jo: Absolutely. So just kind of beginning to wrap up a little bit here, but what do you think is the best advice you’ve ever been given towards your author journey?
Carissa: Oh, best advice I’ve been given…
Jo: Or advice that you could give, best advice that you could give for somebody who may be starting this journey or already on this journey.
Carissa: Well, I can tell you the worst advice I ever got, because it inspired the best advice I will give. The worst advice I got was when I was first starting out, that you have to bleed for your words, if you’re not bleeding for your words, and they’re not a huge struggle, and you’re not just absolutely like, oh, over every word, then you’re not doing it right. I will tell you right now, that’s BS. You don’t have to bleed over your words. You don’t have to struggle over them. You don’t have to make it a big deal. Not every chapter has to be like the prose of a lifetime. Sometimes the truth is disguised as like just normal speak, sometimes the truth, as we know it right now, isn’t going to be the most foo-fooy prose ever. It’s going to be the, the raw, the down in the dirt, the trueness of you in what you’re writing. If you try to fill it up a little bit, it loses its authenticity. And so let whatever’s coming out, come out and stop worrying about the prose or stop worrying about what other people will think about it because the right people will vibe with your material the way that they should. And so if you deprive them of who you are and the way that you write, you’re not using your voice and your authenticity, the way it’s meant to be used. So that’s my advice.
Jo: That just goes right to, done is better than perfect. And yeah, you’re totally going to attract, you know, the people that, there’ll be people that will love your writing and there’ll be people that it just doesn’t gel with and that’s fine, they’re not your audience. So, yeah.
Carissa: And you’re going to evolve. I mean, you’re, you’re going to, you’re starting where you’re starting. And so you can’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle or end. You have to start where you are and your evolution into whatever type of author you’re going to become, because your writing’s going to change and your style is going to change so much. I mean, when I’ve gone back and re-read some of my earlier books, I’m like, why did I write it like that? That’s so weird. And then I’ll, I’ll continue on. I’m like, holy cow, that, that part came out really good, I liked that. Or, you know, it, you’re gonna be looking at your stuff and you’re going to have those fluctuations and feelings, but you’ll evolve as an author. And that’s exactly how it’s meant to be perfect.
Jo: It goes right back to that consistency again, whatever we do, you’ve got to have that consistency and keep going. Can you tell, our listeners then, a little bit about your future plans, the things that you’ve got kind of going on in the background here, because it sounds like you’ve got quite a bit going on, particularly around this Millionaire Mindset for Authors?
Carissa: Yes. Well, after this challenge that we just did, so we did a week long Millionaire Author Challenge, and it was mostly the manifestation stuff. I’ve kind of surveyed all of the people who are a part of it, you included, to try to figure out like, what, what should the next phase of this be? ‘Cause I felt called to do the challenge and I wasn’t quite sure where it would lead or what it would turn into because, kind of like we discussed, when I originally thought the idea of like, if I did something around millionaire authorship, would anyone be interested? Everyone was like, not everyone, but a lot of people were like, I don’t want to be a millionaire author. I’ll never be a millionaire author. How can any, you know, all these things came up, so I was like, Is this the right thing. And I’m like, well, I’m feeling called to do it. Let’s do it. And so once I got the survey back and people were like, yeah, I would really like to see this expanded further so that it’s got more practical tips into like the writing side of things or practical tips into the, like, how do you use manifestation for marketing, for publishing, whatever. And how do we incorporate a community? I was like, okay, well maybe if we created a course, then that is even bigger. That includes all of this stuff that we did for the challenge to a degree, but it’s its own thing. And then include a lot of the stuff that I’ve obviously carried with me for the past, however many years, and married them up into a really big course, meaning that it’s going to have a lot of dense information. Not necessarily, that’ll be so big that people will be like, oh my gosh, I’ve never finishing this thing because it’s that big. But it had the power and impact that it needs to have. That’s kind of where Millionaire Author Manifestation, at least I think that’s going to be the name, maybe Millionaire Author Vibe. I don’t know. Manifestation is the one that I have right now. So Millionaire Author Manifestation course is coming out. And I’m in the process of kind of putting together a beta team of people who are going to be involved in helping me direct the energy of this thing and kind of put it all together and see how it’s going to flow and see what kind of magic we can put together and bring out into the world. So that’s, I mean, it’s literally in like the very beginning stages right now. Like I think I have the outline in my Kajabi system and that’s it.
Jo: It’s going to be so amazing. And so like you said, I did your Millionaire Author Challenge, and it was five days, so much fun. Yeah. So some of it is things that I, because I’ve already been on this journey for a while, things that I already knew, but you always need those reminders and you always need to put it into practice. And so that was what was really cool. And it’s so cool to see so many other people out there too, who are on this author journey, that believe in that power of mindset and manifestation and believe that they can transform their author careers into something that comes with a little bit more ease and something that really fulfills them on so many more levels than where it’s sitting at the moment.
Carissa: It was amazing. And so many people who are in there, had like these great aha moments, or like even some smaller manifestations that were happening throughout the week. One of the things that’s so cool. You know, you can, you can be reaching for this millionaire author, destiny, and you, you might not get earned from the millionaire authorship, the millionaire lifestyle, I guess may not come from your authorship. Maybe it comes from something else that you had no idea was going to come up because you were open to allowing the universal energies to flow to you. It opened up that millionaire status somewhere else, which then can flow onto your author career, which then can boost your author career up. I mean, there’s, there’s so many ways and avenues that it can all flow in together. And so as long as you’re open to the possibilities of it being brought to you, whether it’s your authorship or elsewhere, it’s so powerful. It’s such an amazing group of people to see how they’re manifesting stuff. One of them was, she was worried because her husband needed cataract surgery and she – you were there, right? Her husband needed a cataract surgery. It was like $1,200. She didn’t know where it was going to come from. And three years ago she got let go from her job and she got a cheque for that exact amount from this job that she, she was, uh, laid off from. I mean, it was like, you couldn’t, how? Like, what? This week. And so it’s like, it’s so cool how we start to manifest things when we just allow the possibilities to come and it doesn’t, as long as we’re open, it can come from anywhere. Bring it on. I don’t care if it comes from my author author platform, if it comes from somewhere else, I don’t care if it comes to my husband, bring it on.
Jo: Absolutely. This stuff works, like it totally does work. And, and when we’re focused on supercharging our lives in this way and increasing our mindset and all that good, all those good vibes, it really is amazing the miracles that happen, the way that the stars align and the people that come into our circles and…
Carissa: Yeah, it brought you to me. So look at this.
Jo: I know! I’ve said this, like, it was so crazy and now I’m like throwing all my money at you for all of your course because I just want to learn everything. And so like, I’m just blown away. When I had the idea to start this podcast, it was a few years ago and I didn’t really know if there’d be an audience or anything for it, but it was something I have always believed that manifestation can play a big role in our writing careers. And that mindset is part of it. Like it, you can’t have one without the other. And then all of a sudden, I’m just, I’m seeing people everywhere. I have found you, and you’ve got this amazing podcast that I highly recommend anybody listening to this, you need to go check out Author Revolution Podcast, because you just bring such a high vibe energy and have so many tips, particularly at the moment towards that Millionaire Author mindset. Which is so good because as authors, we should be putting that starving artist mentality to bed. We, we need to move on from that.
Carissa: We beat that horse. It can go away.
Jo: We don’t need that anymore. We don’t even know, it’s amazing how the, the universe or whatever you believe in starts working for you when you’re, you’re doing this stuff.
Carissa: Absolutely. It’s truly miraculous.
Jo: So good. So can you just leave us with telling everybody where they can connect with you, where they can find your wonderful courses and your podcasts and all that good stuff?
Carissa: Absolutely. Um, if they want to check out my books, it’s just straight at CarissaAndrews.com. So, two A’s in the middle of Carissa and then Andrew. So apparently all of my URLs are like this because AuthorRevolution.org is the other one. And that has two R’s in the middle of it. So author and then revolution, you can pretty much find everything else from that, those two points. So I have the Millionaire Author Coach. It’s a link at the top of Author Revolution, so that can be found, the podcast can be found from there and pretty much all the social media as well.
Jo: Awesome. Wonderful. It’s been so amazing chatting with you today. I have just had so much fun. I’m going to have to have you back again, because there’s just so much that I still want to kind of pull from you and, and yeah.
Carissa: Absolutely.
Jo: So I’m definitely gonna have to have you back, but thank you so much for coming onto this episode.
Carissa: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Jo: Isn’t Carissa the coolest? Honestly, she’s an absolute treasure trove of authorly knowledge.
So here are some takeaways from today’s show.
- Rapid releasing doesn’t mean you need to write 12 books a year. Create a plan for yourself that is sustainable and won’t burn you out. Carissa suggests writing four books a year.
- Focus on creating a large backlist for your books, but don’t kill yourself in doing so. Make sure you enjoy the process.
- If you’re struggling to make money from your books, consider what beliefs are holding you back from your ideal author career. What money blocks do you need to work on?
- Your thoughts and your beliefs, along with your actions, of course, play a strong hand in your author success.
- Prioritize your time, schedule it, and train your brain to enjoy writing.
- Stay in alignment with your goals by staying in your joy. Focus on positive thoughts and beliefs about your author career. This fuels the Law of Attraction. And remember, we live in an inclusion based universe where the answer is always yes.
- Read for pleasure. Remember why reading is fun and this will remind you why it’s fun for your readers as well.
- Write every day, even if it’s just for 10 minutes. Every word counts.
- Don’t bleed over your prose, write your story in your words and your voice. The right people will vibe with the story, the way that they should.
So if you’re as enamoured with Carissa, as I am, make sure that you check out the show notes for links to her Rapid Release Roadmap course, and her Millionaire Author Challenge. You can also join the wait list for her Millionaire Author Manifestation Course, that’ll be released later this year. And also make sure you check out a podcast, The Author Revolution Podcast, for even more practical tips for up-leveling your author career and manifesting your best writing life.
And if you enjoyed this show, please make sure to rate, review and share with a friend. In doing so you’re a huge support in keeping this podcast going.
So until next time,
Happy Writing!