Description:
Are you an Enneagram Type One, the Reformer? Are you also a writer hoping to sell some books? Let’s build a purpose-driven career that’s the right fit for you. It starts with knowing what you care about in your fiction, why you chose the indie path, and why you feel compelled to write stories in the first place. Then you can build a meaningful career goal, and from that, we create your Indie Author Strategy for Type One, the Reformer.
Enough wasting energy on the wrong things. Time to align!
Don’t forget to hit Subscribe for more author life videos from Claire.
Links:
Indie Author Alignment: 5-Day Foundation course: www.ffs.media/foundation.
Discover your type: www.enneagraminstitute.com
Script:
Hi and welcome to the first video of this series on building your indie author strategy with regard to your enneagram type.
I’m Claire Taylor with FFS Media, and I've been an indie author and working with indie authors on their stories full-time since 2015.
Here’s the thing about our business: there are a lot of things you could be doing to write and sell books. And most indies I know do a lot of those things... but without much rhyme or reason.
And it makes sense! Most of us didn’t come from a business or marketing background, so it can be overwhelming. And there are a lot of “experts” trying to tell us you have to learn Facebook Ads or Instagram, or whatever if you want to make it, so be sure to buy their course! Those are all just tactics, though, and you may not need them.
Most indies are just scrapping together a career, building it from scratch, and making it up as we go, and you know what? Y'all are doing a great job. But wouldn’t it be nicer if you had some sort of roadmap so you could waste as little energy as possible? That’s what I’m gonna talk about today.
Before we jump in, be sure to hit Subscribe if you want more videos from me in the future. I know it’s easy to forget to do, so just a friendly reminder.
Okay, real talk: Indies are burning out like crazy lately by living in a reactive state rather than a proactive one, reacting instead of thoughtfully responding, and if you don’t have a strong filter for what new tricks and tactics would genuinely benefit you and which ones you don’t need to mess with at all, you’re going to run out of steam, and you might even forget to write your books.
That’s where a strategy comes in. Your strategy is your filter, and your enneagram type, which addresses your core fears and core desires, what you want and what you want to avoid, is a fantastic foundation upon which to build your strategy. Make your strategy work for who you are.
So, if you are an Enneagram Type One, the Reformer, this video is for you. If you don’t know your type, I have a link to the Enneagram Institute’s website where you can read more about the types and even take a test, if you so choose.
Let’s talk about what motivates an Enneagram Type One and how to build a comprehensive and compatible author strategy around it.
I, myself, am a Type One, so I know a thing or two from personal experience about what will and won’t work for our type.
The core motivations of the Reformer are all about goodness and conducting yourself in a way that’s beyond moral reproach. If you’re a One, your top priority will be to hold yourself to high standards of integrity, and the one thing you absolutely want to avoid is being perceived as corrupt or making a move that compromises your integrity or opens you up to criticism that you believe is legit. That “you believe” is important, because that’s all that matters to a One.
When you make decisions for your business, you must incorporate your values into the process. That goes for all types. But in my experience, Ones tend to be the clearest about what their values are.
Let’s talk about some things a Reformer might care about within their indie author career:
Producing high-quality work
Telling stories that can inspire change and show how to make the world better
Being perceived as honest and moral by both readers and fellow authors
Not sacrificing your integrity to make a buck - EVER
For a One, looking at this list might feel like, “Yeah, duh. Of course I care about those things. Doesn’t everyone?”
Not at all.
Now, why on Earth would a Type One want to travel the indie path to begin with? It’s important to know our reason for this before we can build a strategy. Here are some reasons I’ve heard from Ones.
“I was born to write, and I have to live out my purpose.”
“I have a message for the world I need to get out there.”
“My words can create change.”
“I know exactly the kinds of stories I want to tell, and I don’t want someone pressuring me to make changes I don’t agree with.”
There will be other reasons, but since most indies I know have more than one reason why they’re in the business, I’m sure at least one of these will resonate with you if you’re a Reformer.
Next, think about what you want to accomplish with your books. What’s your purpose for telling stories?
Maybe your purpose is to make the world a better place with your writing. Because Ones care about goodness and integrity, the lack of it in the world can drive us a batty, and we’re desperate to inspire others toward the same standards we hold ourselves to.
Maybe your purpose is to help people heal from shame, victimization, or guilt when they read your stories. Okay, Ones, consider yourself seen. When we make a mistake, we know it immediately, and no one beats us up for it more than we do, right? Our inner critics are unrivaled in their ability to paralyze us completely. But as we grow and learn to free ourselves from that sense that there’s something corrupted deep inside us, we may want to take some more people with us on this healing journey. I see that a lot in the writing of Reformers. They want their readers to learn that they, too, are already perfect in their imperfection. When we free ourselves, we want to turn around and free others. Writers are liberators.
Another evolved purpose for a Reformer would be to show people the gray areas of life. Type Ones are notorious for being black-and-white thinkers, but that’s only in the unhealthy and average levels of the type. Once we move a little higher in our self-awareness, we actually enjoy playing in the gray, especially in fiction, because it’s a safe place for us to do it.
Okay, once you know what you care about or value in your writing, why you chose to go indie, and your purpose for telling stories, we can start talking goals. Because you need to know what you’re going after before you can build a strategy for it.
Let’s say you got into this business because you wanted to tell stories that make people laugh and accept their imperfections rather than feeling ashamed of them.
And the things you care about are publishing well-edited books, writing imperfect characters that inspire, making people laugh, and not compromising your integrity for money, no matter how much is up for grabs.
Before I move on, let me not mince words: if you don’t know these things about yourself, you’re going to set a stupid and irrelevant goal. You’re going to set a goal disconnected from reality and probably based on a goal you saw someone of a different type set for themself. So you have to take some time to write out what you care about and why you write, and THEN you set goals that relate to money in any way, shape, or form.
Now, let’s talk about what a goal for those criteria might look like:
I want to earn enough money to continue my pursuit of finding my specific tribe of women and inspiring them to feel less ashamed about things they have no business feeling ashamed about.
So, yes, this goal does mention money. But only in the context of how it can serve the purpose I’ve set out to accomplish. Because it might be that if you’re going to have the energy you need to reach this goal, you need to make writing your full-time job, and you can’t do that if you can’t pay the bills with the money it brings in.
Ones can usually be pretty level-headed about money, but the trap we fall into is equating earnings with moral superiority. That is, if we make six-figures, we are somehow more perfect and worthy than someone doing the same and living below the poverty level. Yikes. Don’t do that. You don’t want to be that megachurch preacher with a private jet who claims it as proof that Jesus loves him best. That’s a very unhealthy version of a Type One. If you catch yourself thinking you have moral superiority because you make more money than someone else, knock that off right away. That’s the trap for the One, so avoid it at all costs. Maybe go have a healthy meal or get a good night’s sleep. Whatever it takes to avoid that nonsense.
Now that you know your purpose-driven goal that aligns with your Enneagram type, we can talk strategy! Yay!
Here’s an example that is in no way my exact one that I live and die by:
I will position myself as an example of a shameless female who is imperfect, rough around the edges, and still good at heart. I will build my brand around that, and direct the audience through my books, videos, blogs, and paid advertising back to me as a central figure of the brand. I will build a track-record of quality stories with my audience so when I have a new book out, they will one-click buy it, I can keep paying bills, and they get to enjoy more of the healing messages I’m pushing into the world.
That is a unique vision, no doubt. It’s broad, doesn’t include specific tactics, and has a real vibe. Yours will be something different. And this kind of strategy is not one you would stumble on without doing the legwork to discover and build it out first.
So, if you want to construct your strategy for your Enneagram type, be sure to start small, with the things you care about (integrity, goodness, right/wrong) and don’t let the big, flashy marketing gurus (who are almost all Threes, by the way) throw you off your course. Yes, making a ton of money is nice, but for Ones, that won’t be enough. Not even close. Accept it, embrace it, and strategize for it.
And if you want more specific steps for building out your Indie Author Strategy, I do have a totally free 5-day course you can sign up for to start asking and workshopping your fiction strategy from the top down. Hundreds of authors have taken it and set out on a path of a truly fulfilling career. You can find the link to it in the description.
Something I encourage indies to do is try to find other authors who are your same Enneagram type, and talk strategy with them. They share the same core motivations with you, so you’ll finally feel like someone is talking your language. If you know another Reformer, why not share this video with them to get the conversation started?
Okay, Reformers, that’s it for now. Keep on being the industry’s conscience, and we’ll chat more soon.