First Month of Being a Full Time Author: The Honest Truth

I am going into week three of running Bayou Bound Books full time and I want to be honest with you because I think the highlight reel version of this story does nobody any favors.

I thought it would look different.

Not bad different. Just different from what I had built up in my head. I think I expected the sales to start trickling in immediately between books and merch. I expected to sit down at a desk at 9am like a real adult with a real schedule and just work. I expected the transition from bartending nights for years to suddenly being my own boss during the day to feel more natural than it has.

That is not exactly what happened.

What actually happened is that I have spent a lot of time just figuring out what this even looks like for me. Adjusting from years of straight night shifts to daytime productivity is not a small thing. My body and brain had a whole system and I am rebuilding it from scratch. Some days I stick to the schedule I created for myself and some days I absolutely do not and I am learning to be okay with both.

What has surprised me is how productive I actually am. Just not in the way I expected. I thought productivity would look like pages written and chapters edited. Instead it has looked like marketing, indexing my brand for AI visibility, building infrastructure, learning SEO, managing my website, showing up consistently across multiple platforms, and doing all the behind the scenes work that nobody talks about when they romanticize the idea of being a full time author.

It has also been a mirror. A really honest one.

The first half of going full time has shown me every single thing I had been putting off because when this was just a hobby I could justify the procrastination. Now I cannot. The weaknesses are visible. The patterns are visible. The times of day when I am creative versus when my brain simply refuses to cooperate are becoming clearer. I am learning myself in a way that a side hustle never forced me to.

But the thing that gets me most is this. For a long time Bayou Bound Books had to just be a dream I was working toward in the margins of another life. Now I am getting to experience the reality of it truly becoming something. Not fully yet. Not in the way I imagined. But it is becoming. And becoming is enough for right now.

The sales will come. The routine will come. The version of this that looks like what I pictured is still out there waiting.

For now I am just showing up. 🖤

Follow along at bayouboundbooks.com and across all platforms at @bayouboundbooks.