Step into Self-Publishing Sovereignty

Have you ever felt like you needed permission to share your wisdom with the world? In this very first episode of the Book Magic Podcast, I’m diving into why choosing self-publishing is no longer considered a "last resort" for aspiring authors - it’s a total badass act of sovereignty.

You’ll discover:

• The freedom, authority, and abundance that self-publishing gives you.
• The hidden drawbacks of traditional publishing that literary agents & publishers do NOT want you to know (and why most authors never see profits beyond their advance).
• Why your book is too important to wait for someone else’s “yes.”

Whether you’re just dreaming of your sacred book or you’re already writing one inside our Book Magic mastermind, this episode will remind you that every page you write is a powerful act of claiming your voice!

// Join our mastermind program for spiritual entrepreneurs who are ready to step into their published author era NOW @ https://bookmagic.co/mastermind ✨

// Sign up for emails with more resources on self-publishing for spiritual entrepreneurs and get our Spiritual Author Roadmap @ https://divineflow.myflodesk.com/spiritualauthorroadmap ✨

// Join our twice-monthly 'Writing Freeflows' to practice showing up for your writing on a consistent basis, even if you're still in the process of finding your voice and the focus for your future book @ https://bookmagic.co/writingfreeflow

// Get clear on your book idea with our Find Your Sacred Book Idea mini-course @ https://divineflow.co/sacredbookidea ✨

🪄 Don’t miss what’s coming next - hit 'Subscribe' to follow along with new episodes each week. And if you're already loving this vibe, please take a moment to write a quick review!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Hi, beautiful friend, and welcome to the very first episode of the Book Magic Podcast. Today we're talking about something really close to my heart, which is stepping into self-publishing sovereignty. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt like you needed permission to share your wisdom with the world? Maybe you've thought you aren't ready until a publisher says yes, or you've wondered if your story was even worth telling until someone outside of you has validated it. This episode is all about reclaiming your voice and your authority and your right to share your message without waiting for anyone else to choose you. In the traditional publishing world, you're often told that your book needs to be polished and packaged and perfectly positioned before it even has a chance. You have to go through gatekeeper after gatekeeper, get an agent, submit to all of these different publishers, get rejections, and hope that eventually, after a very long while, somebody will choose you. And even then, you might wait years to see your book come alive. You lose creative freedom, you lose time, you lose the energy and momentum and passion for your writing. And anyone who's ever gotten a divine download knows that when you get that feeling inside you that there's something you want to create, your soul is ready to create it right now. If you're new to me and my work, maybe you've been holding on to the idea that one day someone will discover you, that this big publisher will swoop in and give you the green light. But the truth is you really don't need that. You don't need permission. Your wisdom is already so valuable, and the world needs it now, without waiting, without being deluded by some expert who thinks they know what's best for your readers more than you do. And for all of the beautiful authors I've already been working with, I want to remind you that you've already made this courageous choice. You've already said yes to yourself by stepping into this community. And sovereignty doesn't end with that first yes, that saying yes to your book. It continues every time you sit down to write, every time you decide to trust your voice over your doubts, every time you talk about your book. So, what does sovereignty actually look like in your book journey? It looks like freedom. Freedom to tell your story in your own words, freedom to design your book in a way that feels aligned with your vision. It looks like authority. You are the authority on your own wisdom. Your book doesn't need anyone else's stamp of approval to make it real. And it looks like abundance. With self-publishing, you keep your profits, you move at your own pace, and you get to integrate your book into your larger business and mission and the ecosystem of your other products and services and offerings. And for my existing authors, remember that every chapter you write, it's not just another task on your to-do list. It is a declaration of sovereignty. It's you saying, My voice matters, my story matters, my wisdom matters. And I'm ready to show up and share it because I know there are people out there who need these words. Sovereignty is about sourcing your light from within and not waiting for someone else to shine the spotlight on you so that you can simply bask in it. And often that's not even what actually happens when your book gets chosen. You still have to put in all the work. You still have to manage the process to make sure your book still stays true to your vision, but you have other people fighting you on that journey along the way. If you're wondering how self-publishing actually stacks up compared to traditional publishing, here are some clear differences. First of all, creative control. With traditional publishing, editors and marketing teams will often reshape your title, your cover, and even your message to fit what they deem as being the market trends. With self-publishing, you get to choose every detail so your book feels truly, authentically yours, and you're actually creating change in the world. You're being progressive, you're moving humanity forward instead of fitting into what already is, trying to stuff yourself into a box that will fit down the conveyor belt of what these so-called publishing professionals have decided is their idea of the best way to do things. And they're usually coming at it from the angle of wanting to be very risk-averse, not wanting to disrupt the system, but instead harnessing it to make more money for themselves. Second thing is the timeline. With traditional publishing, it can take about two years from signing the contract to seeing your book on shelves. That's two extra years you have to try to keep that excitement alive, that passion alive. Because once your book comes out, it's actually the beginning of the marketing engine. And that's when you need to be the most excited about your message. With self-publishing, you can publish within a few months. As soon as your book is ready, it can come out into the world and flow with your creative energy and that passion and momentum that you've already created while you've been pouring your heart and soul into it. Hey there. Just hopping in real quick to remind you, every powerful book starts with a clear foundation. Imagine having a map that guides you from your very first spark of inspiration all the way to launching your published book. That's what the spiritual author's roadmap is. Our free guide that takes you through every phase of the journey so you never feel lost or alone along the way. You can get it now at bookmagic.co slash roadmap. That's bookmagic.co slash roadmap. Alright, I've blabbed enough. Let's get back to the episode. The third thing is profit. With traditional publishing, authors typically earn between 8 to 12% of book sales. But the thing is, those royalties can take months and months to arrive. And it takes so long that you don't even know which marketing efforts you've put in have been the most effective. You might be receiving payment for something you did a year ago. But even that is a very rare situation because the hard truth that publishers absolutely do not want you to know is that most authors never actually earn royalties on their book. Because they often receive an advance up front, their book sales never quite catch up with that amount. So while many people go into traditional publishing think, oh great, this will be my retirement money. Industry research and publisher surveys show that 70 to 80% of traditionally published authors do not sell enough copies to earn back their advance, which means they never receive royalties beyond that initial payment. And you might be thinking, well, they got a payment up front. That's good, right? It may or may not be because remember that the publishing timeline is much shorter when it comes to you actually getting your manuscript finished. And so they're basically paying you to take time away from your business and your clients or your job to write your book. And that's the money that you're getting at that point. For those who do earn out, that's what it's called when you've sold enough copies to receive royalties, it often takes two to five years of steady sales. That means that's five years of you going out and constantly talking about the same book that took two years to be published in the first place. Now, there are definitely a few outliers. If you're a celebrity author, if you have a big media personality, or you happen to go viral on TikTok, you might earn out in a matter of months. But that's very rare and it's not what typically happens for most traditionally published authors. A commonly cited figure in the publishing world is that the average nonfiction book sells between 250 and 500 copies in its first year, and maybe about three to five thousand over its lifetime. That's often not enough to surpass even a modest advance because royalties are such a small percentage of that sale price. And books aren't exactly priced super high to begin with, are they? Compare this with self-publishing, where you get to keep 100% of your profits after the printing and distribution costs. And you can check on the sales of your book up to the minute. You can literally see exactly how many you're selling. So you can know when what you're doing to promote your book is working and when you might need to try something else. What I've also started teaching my authors is how to sell your book directly from your own website where you get the highest royalty rate because you're not having to pay so much in distribution to platforms such as Amazon or Ingram or even Lulu. I know I've already given you a lot of good reasons on choosing self-publishing, but there's more. The fourth difference is ownership. The publisher usually holds the rights to your book, so you can't always repurpose that content freely, but they can. And they don't always have to tell you what they're doing with your book. With my first book, I never knew when it was being translated into other languages. I never knew when they decided to make a paperback version of it, which was not very good quality, I might add. But my name is still on it. When you self-publish, there's no contract. So you own your book, you own your words, and you get to decide how they're actually shared in the world. You could take a page you wrote in your book and share it however you want, wherever you want, and no one's gonna get mad at you. And lastly, the fifth major difference is marketing. With traditional publishing, unless you're a celebrity, most of the marketing is still on you. I did receive a few emails here and there with so-called opportunities that my publisher rounded up for me to be on other people's podcasts, but they were never the right fit for my brand. And I almost always said no, or I wished I had said no. With self-publishing, you're already in charge of the marketing. There's no illusion that someone else is gonna pick up the slack for you. And this is actually a really big reason why a lot of people do want to have that traditional book deal, is because they think someone else is gonna get their book out there. And while traditional publishing does have its perks when it comes to distribution, you don't get to keep the rewards of that distribution unless you self-publish your book. Authors that work with me have chosen this path because they're not willing to wait years to give up profits or to hand their voice to someone else. When you self-publish, you've chosen sovereignty. And that's such a powerful thing, not only when it comes to publishing, but just on like your spiritual journey of life in itself. I know all of this because I have been a traditionally published author, and I've talked to many other traditionally published authors about their experience. And what we've agreed on is that it's an outdated model. It used to be that you had to wait to be chosen, but today, with all of the tools of the internet at our disposal, with other self-published authors to learn from and guides such as me and my team, you get to be the one to choose yourself to declare that you are worthy, that you are ready, that you don't need permission from anyone else to share your story or your voice. That's really just an excuse at this point. I want to close today with a little spark of inspiration for you, whether you're just dreaming about your book or you're already deep in the writing process. Take a deep breath with me. Close your eyes if you can. And imagine holding your finished book in your hands. Feel the weight of it, the texture of the cover, the energy of your words inside. And now imagine the sovereignty you feel in that moment. That sense of self-respect, of championing your own voice, and not waiting for someone else to ordain you as a voice that's worthy of being listened to. Knowing that you didn't wait for anyone else to give you permission. You chose yourself. And here's a mantra you can carry with you this week. Every page I write is an act of claiming my sovereignty as an author. And if you'd like a journal prompt to take this deeper or just something to reflect on until we chat again, here it is. Where am I still waiting for permission in my book journey? And how can I reclaim my sovereignty? Thank you so much for joining me for this very first episode. As you can tell, I love blending the spiritual with the practical, and I'm so looking forward to exploring more writing techniques and powerful author rituals and all of the many transformational ways your book can grow your business, elevate your authority, and expand your impact. So if you haven't already, hit subscribe, join the email list, and let's bring that sacred book out into the world together.