In the fall of 2023, I was three months away from my next chapter.
After many years of juggling different income streams, I had finally doubled down on the one that was working best, Four Minute Books. Everything was going swell. The business had several legs to stand on, and traffic and revenue were growing. It all seemed stable enough at a level that would soon allow me to spend half my days or so writing books while still making good money. That chapter was to begin in early 2024.
But then, in September, Google changed its algorithm, my traffic started plummeting, and everything I had built over the course of eight years basically collapsed within a few months. Oops!
I didn’t expect to spend my 2024 grasping at straws. I certainly didn’t expect I’d be applying to jobs for the first time ever. And if you had told me I’ll have been working a job for 18 months by summer 2026, I’d have called you crazy. Yet here we are.
We usually have an idea of what we want our next chapter in life to look like. But sometimes, that chapter never comes. The question is how will we write the one we’ve ultimately ended up in? Because even when we turn pages we never could have imagined, we are still writing our story. Not alone, but together. With life. With friends. With allies, adversaries, and wholly unexpected characters.
Since watching my mini empire crumble, I’ve had to make a lot of adjustments. But I also have been working more than ever on new books. I’ve even started a novel, which I’d never done before.
The next chapter you had in mind may never arrive—but there will be a next chapter, and it just might surprise you.
