Happy Holidays Modern Authors!
This time of year has a funny way of messing with people who want to write a book.
You scroll past someone else’s launch.
You see a polished cover.
You hear about a keynote, a TEDx talk, a podcast tour.
And quietly, a thought creeps in:
I should be further along than this.
It happened to me. My draft of Modern Author OS, my new nonfiction book stalled in August as some pressing priorities emerged on the homefront. The book that was supposed to launch in the fall... is now scheduled for spring 2026.
As I thought about my own journey as an author, I said "I should be further along than this."
If that’s you too, let me offer a reframe.
Not finishing your book this year isn’t a failure.
It’s data.
Because when I look back at 2025, across hundreds of modern authors at wildly different stages, one thing is clear:
Progress doesn’t come from talent, timing, or even motivation.
It comes from patterns.
And those patterns are learnable.
This year, I had a front-row seat to a wide spectrum of author journeys in Manuscripts:
- 306 people started writing their books
- 234 announced their books publicly
- 216 published
- 42 gave TEDx talks
- Hundreds appeared on podcasts
- 89 won awards
- Many launched courses, workshops, talks, retreats, and trainings
What matters isn’t the numbers.
What matters is what they all had in common.
I thought it would be helpful to share my six biggest lessons I learned from watching modern authors move from “I should write a book” to “I actually did.”
Take these as your year-end pep talk... not hype, not pressure, just perspective.
1. No One Finishes a Book Alone (Even If They Pretend They Did)
The biggest myth in writing is that it’s a solitary pursuit.
Every author I saw finish this year had someone, a group, a partner, a community, a cohort, who made the work visible and shared.
One story that stuck with me was Katy Motiey.
Katy had been writing her memoir for 27 years.
Not because she lacked discipline.
Not because she lacked skill.
But because the work lived entirely in her head and her hard drive.
Once she had a community, people reading along, responding, asking questions, the book moved.
The words didn't get easier.
The weight of carrying it alone disappeared.
Writing with others makes momentum louder.
If this is your year, the lesson isn’t “write more.”
It’s don’t disappear while you write.
Find a community. Get others involved as readers. Never write alone.
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2. Progress Comes From Sharing the Incomplete, Not Waiting for the Perfect
Many people stall out waiting until their book is perfect.
Don't.
One of the most powerful lessons I saw play out this year came from Monique de Maio, a veteran leader, author, and podcaster whose book The 7 Secrets to Creating a Life You Love became a real touchstone for women in leadership.
Monique didn’t show with a finished, polished manuscript that “just needed editing.”
What she had was a lifetime of insights, experiences, and stories from her work helping women leaders navigate career growth, overwhelm, identity, and intentional living.
It was like she downloaded everything in her head onto the page.
Raw. Real. Personal.
I met her and she was convinced it was years away from ready.
Instead of waiting to compile all of that into a perfect first draft, she started sharing the ideas early, out in the world... through posts on LinkedIn, her Possibilities Podcast, on stages, in conversations, and in the way she showed up as a mentor and speaker.
Those early conversations weren’t finished products. They were fragments of wisdom, questions she answered in real time, and lived reflections on choice, narrative, environment, internal voice, and agency... ideas that later became the seven “secrets” in her book.
What happened next is the real point:
Because she shared imperfect work first, she found her audience before the book came out.
People didn’t just read her book.
They recognized themselves in it.
Her stories, born from relentless curiosity, resilience, and real life, became the glue that held the framework together. They didn’t need to be perfect to be powerful. They needed to be shared.
If your first draft feels incomplete, that’s not a stop sign. That’s data.
It means there’s something worth refining.
Iteration isn’t finishing. It’s learning in public, and that’s where momentum really begins.
Write your book in public through your speeches, your posts, your articles, and your interviews.
3. In a Noisy World, Belonging Beats Visibility
A lot of ambitious people have a killer idea, but are waiting until they are "famous enough to launch." Belonging beats fame today.
If there’s one thing 2025 made obvious, it’s this:
Attention is cheap.
Belonging is rare.
The authors whose books actually moved this year weren’t the loudest online. They were the clearest about who their book was for.
Take Daniel Wakefield.
His book on building a business didn’t just attract readers. It gave people language they could use together, inside teams, with clients, in meetings.
The book worked because it didn’t just inform.
It created identity.
That’s what cuts through now.
Not mass reach.
Not viral posts.
A small group of people who feel seen and give a sh!t.
You don’t need millions of followers.
You need readers who recognize themselves in your work and want to bring others with them.
4. Most People Already Have More of a Book Than They Realize
I started doing something new in 2025 with new authors in our community... and it was wildly successful.
Don't start from a blank page.
One of the quiet lessons this year was how rarely books start from nothing.
Many authors who finished in 2025 didn’t begin with a blank page. They began by organizing what already existed:
- Blog posts
- Podcast interviews
- Workshop notes
- Keynotes
- Internal documents
- Half-written essays
Before I spoke to authors in 2025, I'd do a quick audit of their LinkedIn, their IG, their website, their YouTube, etc., and I was shocked how much they could easily port into their book.
I showed them and they lit up realizing their prior work could become present fuel for their book.
When we helped people step back and inventory their prior work, a pattern emerged.
For many, 30–50% of the raw material was already there.
The obstacle wasn’t writing.
It was structure.
They require decisions about what matters most.
If you didn’t write much this year, the lesson isn’t “try harder next year.”
It’s start by taking stock.
5. AI Changed the Process, Not the Purpose
A year ago, I worried AI would flatten writing. As someone who loved books and writing, I was flooded with posts, reels, and articles claiming that AI would put anyone in the knowledge business out of work... in 2025.
What actually happened was the opposite.
As AI-generated content exploded, the books that resonated most were deeply human... messy stories, earned insights, lived experience.
AI helped with:
- Outlines
- Organization
- Summaries
- Repurposing
But it didn’t replace voice.
They crave truth they recognize
I began playing around with AI in 2024 to help me structure long-form articles, and I remember in February of 2025 someone read a blog post I'd written about innovation and left a comment that struck me and has stuck with me since.
"The first part of this article was great (and clearly yours), but the last third was obviously just a bunch of AI garbage. You don't need that."
He was right... not just about my writing, but about AI and its place in our world today.
The authors who thrived weren’t the ones outsourcing thinking.
They used tools to move faster toward their own perspective.
The lesson isn’t to reject technology or surrender to it.
It was my big lesson too... it's a great too., but it's not going to replace me.
It’s to use tools without surrendering authorship.
It's why I invested 6 months developing a new platform for our author community called Codex, which is a very different spin on AI in the modern author era.
6. Books Still Matter... Because They Create Leverage
I get asked a lot if "people still read?"
The good news is they do... book sales rose again in 2025. The death of books has been greatly exaggerated.
But the business model for authors... that has changed drastically over the past decade, and that's where I do see a huge need for education.
Despite the rise of short-form everything, books still did something nothing else could in 2025.
They opened doors. They created leverage.
Modern authors used their books to:
- Secure speaking invitations
- Land podcast interviews
- Get clients
- Start conversations with companies
- Build courses and workshops
- Anchor thought leadership
Very few measured success by royalties alone.
They measured success by what the book unlocked.
“I’ve thought deeply about this, and I can help others do the same.”
In a world optimized for speed, a book signals seriousness.
That signal still carries weight.
Modern authors wrote theirs not because you expect to sell millions of copies, but because they expect to impact in ways beyond copies.
The Bigger Pattern I Can’t Ignore
Looking across all of this, one conclusion keeps resurfacing:
Books are still hard... 98 or 99 percent of people who start theirs will never finished.
The authors who finished didn’t have more inspiration or motivation than the 99%. They had systems.
They weren’t asking:
- “Is this good enough?”
- "Is this unique?"
- "Will this sell?"
- "How do I make time?"
- “Is now the right time?”
- “Should I keep going?”
They had a system that answered those questions for them.
They showed up.
They did the work.
They adjusted in public.
And over time, something shifted.
What felt overwhelming became manageable.
What felt lonely became shared.
What felt impossible became inevitable.
A laptop, ChatGPT, and an idea isn't a system.
A process. A timeline. A community. An announcement. An editor. Peers. Support. Those are what make a system.
Design yours first. Then start writing.
If You’re Carrying This Into the New Year
If you're like me and 2025 didn’t go how you hoped, here’s the honest takeaway:
You didn’t fall short.
You just didn’t have the conditions yet.
Writing a meaningful book doesn’t require quitting your job or disappearing for years.
What I saw work, over and over, was simple:
A year.
A few hours a week.
And other people who cared enough to stay in it with you.
That’s it.
No hype.
No heroics.
No overnight success stories.
Just steady progress... shared.
So if you’re heading into the new year wondering whether this could finally be your year, here’s your pep talk:
It can be.
Not because you’ll suddenly feel ready.
But because readiness has never been the requirement.
Consistency is.
I’m rooting for you.
And whatever path you choose next year, I hope you don’t walk it alone.
Reach out if I can help you with your book in 2026!
Eric
Originally published in The Modern Author newsletter.
