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Russell

I write weird books. You might not believe me if you’ve come across me recently, but my first books included an epistolary novel told all in blog posts about a girl trying to prove her father’s suicide was a murder so she doesn’t leave her family home, a grounded sci-fi novel about a disabled boy who meets a homeless alien and has to help her get…

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Meeting summary for Storyurge (08/01/2024)

Quick recapMonica and Russell discussed the structure and strategies of their upcoming six-week course on storytelling, focusing on characters, building worlds, plot, and the use of psychological triggers. They also delved into the intricacies of bully romance, the differences between desert and forest books, an…

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Meeting summary for Storyurge (08/29/2024)Quick recapMonica and Russell explored various aspects of storytelling, including character development, plot structure, and narrative techniques. They discussed the importance of pacing, dialogue, and setting in their current writing project, as well as strategies for creating engaging plots and emotional arcs.…

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Quick recap

Russell and Monica had a wide-ranging conversation about the influence of ecosystems on writing genres. They explored how trends in different ecosystems shape writing genres, the potential of sci-fi romance as a new trend, and the habits of tundras and their role in setting trends. They also discussed scheduling and posting limits on platform…

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Quick recapMonica and Russell had a comprehensive conversation about various topics, primarily focusing on the music industry, aquatics, and Kickstarter campaigns. They discussed the importance of creating engagement and excitement in aquatics, the challenges of planning events, and the strategies used by successful Kickstarter campaigns. They also touc…

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Quick recap

Monica and Russell had a comprehensive conversation about various topics, primarily focusing on the music industry, aquatics, and Kickstarter campaigns. They discussed the importance of creating engagement and excitement in aquatics, the challenges of planning events, and the strategies used by successful Kickstarter campaigns. They also touc…

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Just as natural ecosystems in the world have distinct characteristics, each with its own balance, rhythm, and method of survival, so too do writers have inherent creative landscapes that shape how they approach storytelling.

Writers approach stories differently. While one writer might craft a narrative that precisely hits market trends, writing quickly and strategically, another would weave a deeply personal narrative, infusing the story with their unique perspective and creating a world that feels intimately connected to their own experiences. Neither approach is inherently superior. They are simply different expressions of creative energy.

That is the heart of the Author Ecosystems. It gives context to different ways to have success as an author.

This article explores how different Author Ecosystems manifest in both fiction and non-fiction writing. We'll journey through five distinct authorial landscapes: the trend-riding Desert, the depth-exploring Grassland, the excitement-generating Tundra, the personality-driven Forest, and the universe-building Aquatic. Each Ecosystem offers a unique lens through which stories are conceived, developed, and brought to life.

More than a writing guide, this exploration is an invitation to recognize and celebrate your natural creative tendencies. By understanding your Ecosystem, you can stop fighting against your inherent writing style and instead learn to harness its unique strengths.

The Desert

Deserts are the literary world's most adaptable ecosystem. Like the resilient plants that thrive in arid landscapes, they don't fight the environment. They become masters of it. Their writing isn't about personal expression as much as it is about connection, about understanding the invisible currents of reader desire that flow beneath the surface of the literary marketplace.

Take romance novels, for instance. While some writers might spend months crafting a love story based purely on their personal vision, a Desert writer walks a more strategic path. They're not just telling a story. They're engaging in a sophisticated dialogue with readers' deepest current yearnings. When workplace romances start trending, they don't just notice. They understand why, and how to deliver a perfect experience for fans of that subgenre. Is it a reflection of changing professional dynamics? A desire for narratives of mutual respect? The Desert writer doesn't just observe these shifts; they translate them into narrative.

This doesn't make their work less creative. It requires the ability to be simultaneously responsive and original. It's like being a jazz musician who can improvise brilliantly within a specific musical framework, rather than a classical performer strictly following every note of the sheet music.

In non-fiction, this approach becomes even more pronounced. During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Desert writers were the first to produce practical guides about remote work, mental health resilience, and navigating unprecedented personal challenges. They didn't wait for perfect information. They responded to an immediate need, providing clarity when readers were most hungry for understanding.

But this approach isn't without its challenges. The Desert ecosystem demands constant vigilance. It requires writers to be part storyteller, part cultural anthropologist who are always scanning, always listening. The risk is becoming so focused on trends that you lose the core of storytelling: genuine human connection.

The most successful Desert writers understand this delicate balance. They're not trend-chasers, but trend-interpreters. They don't just follow the market. They help shape it, offering narratives that feel simultaneously familiar and fresh.

The Desert ecosystem isn't about sacrificing art for commerce. It's about recognizing that true art often lies in creating stories that speak directly to the moment, which help readers make sense of their rapidly changing world.

In the vast, shifting landscape of storytelling, Desert writers are the ultimate navigators. They don't fight the terrain. They become one with it.

Grassland

Grassland writers are the deep-root systems of the literary world. While other ecosystems might chase the quick bloom of trends or the flashy surface of storytelling, Grasslands are busy building entire worlds of understanding that can sustain readers for generations.

In fiction, this means creating universes so rich and comprehensive that readers don't just enter a story. They inhabit an entire ecosystem of imagination. George R.R. Martin didn't just write a fantasy series; he constructed a world so intricate that fans could spend decades exploring its history, linguistics, and cultural nuances. Each book becomes not just a narrative, but a gateway to a deeper, more complex understanding of human nature.

Non-fiction Grassland writers approach their subjects with similar depth. They aren't content with surface-level explanations or quick takes. When Yuval Noah Harari writes about human history, he's not simply recounting events. He's weaving a comprehensive understanding that connects seemingly disparate threads of human experience, showing how our past shapes our present and future.

This approach requires a kind of intellectual courage that goes beyond typical storytelling. Grassland writers must be willing to spend years developing a single concept. They understand that true expertise isn't about knowing everything quickly, but about knowing something so thoroughly that its complexity becomes beautiful.

Their writing process is less about productivity and more about exploration. Where a Desert writer might produce multiple books in a year, a Grassland writer might spend years on a single project, turning each idea like a gemstone, examining it from every possible angle. It's not inefficiency; it's commitment.

This doesn't mean Grassland writers are slow or academic. Their work pulses with life precisely because of its depth. They're not detached observers, but passionate investigators who bring entire worlds to life through meticulous research and profound insight.

In science fiction, this might mean creating technological systems so believable that they feel like blueprints for future innovation. In historical writing, it means reconstructing past worlds with such vivid detail that readers can smell the air, hear the conversations, understand the hidden motivations behind historical moments.

The greatest risk for a Grassland writer is getting lost in the details, becoming so fascinated by the complexity of their subject that they lose the narrative thread. The most successful Grasslands learn to balance depth with accessibility, creating work that is simultaneously scholarly and deeply engaging.

Sarah understood this. Her books weren't just stories or research. They were invitations asking readers to dig deeper, to see the world not as a collection of isolated facts, but as a complex, interconnected system waiting to be understood.

In a world that often celebrates speed and surface-level understanding, Grassland writers remind us that some stories require patience. Some truths can only be revealed through careful, persistent cultivation. They don't just write books. They grow entire worlds.

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Tundra

Tundra writers are the performance artists of the literary world. Where other writers might see a book as a static object, Tundras see a living, breathing experience carefully orchestrated for maximum impact. Their writing isn't just about telling a story; it's about generating a wave of excitement that sweeps readers into an immersive narrative journey.

At the heart of the Tundra approach lies a masterful understanding of what makes stories compelling. These writers don't just use tropes. They stack them with surgical precision, creating narratives that hit multiple reader pleasure points simultaneously. Imagine a fantasy novel that combines the chosen one narrative, a complex magic system, and a found family arc. Each element is carefully selected not just for its individual appeal, but for how it interacts with the others, creating a narrative ecosystem more exciting than any single element could be.

This approach requires a deep, almost instinctual understanding of storytelling mechanics. Tundra writers are like literary DJs, mixing familiar beats in ways that feel both nostalgic and completely fresh. They know that readers don't want entirely new experiences. They want exciting reimaginings of stories they already love.

In non-fiction, this translates to books that feel like transformative events. A Tundra self-help author doesn't just offer advice. They create a narrative of personal revolution. They stack motivational techniques, personal anecdotes, and actionable strategies in a way that makes readers feel they're on the cusp of a life-changing moment.

The launch becomes as important as the book itself. Where other writers might see a book release as a simple transaction, Tundras see it as a carefully choreographed performance. They understand that excitement is a renewable resource. If managed correctly, each launch can feed into the next, creating a cycle of anticipation and satisfaction.

This doesn't mean their work is shallow. Far from it. The most successful Tundra writers understand that true excitement comes from depth carefully packaged in an accessible form. They're not afraid to tackle complex ideas, but they do so with a sense of narrative momentum that keeps readers turning pages.

The greatest challenge for Tundra writers is maintaining momentum. Their natural cycle is one of intense activity followed by periods of recovery. The most successful learn to use this rhythm, creating launches that feel like literary festivals, followed by thoughtful periods of reflection and preparation.

In a publishing world that often feels dominated by careful calculation or pure artistic expression, Tundra writers remind us that storytelling is also about joy, about the pure excitement of a narrative that makes your heart race and your imagination soar. They don't just write books. They create experiences that make readers feel alive.

Forest

Writing begins as an act of vulnerability for Forest authors. It's not about telling a story so much as revealing a piece of oneself, creating a landscape where readers don't just visit, but become permanent residents of a deeply personal world.

Their worlds are constructed not from external research or market trends, but from the rich internal terrain of personal experience. Their writing transcends genre. A Forest author might write a murder mystery, a sweet romance, and a speculative fiction novel that all feel fundamentally different yet unmistakably connected by a singular voice.

This isn't about narcissism. It's about authenticity. A Forest writer's superpower lies in their ability to inject their unique perspective into every narrative, creating a shared language that transforms readers from passive consumers into active participants in a collaborative storytelling experience.

In fiction, this means creating characters that feel less like fictional constructs and more like extensions of the author's own complex inner world. These characters don't just move through a plot. They embody different facets of human experience, filtered through the author's distinctive lens of understanding. When a reader says, "This feels like something only [Author] could have written," they're acknowledging the Forest writer's true gift.

Non-fiction becomes equally personal. A Forest writer doesn't simply present information. They weave personal narrative, research, and insight into a tapestry that feels both deeply informative and intimately human. Their books become conversations, inviting readers to see the world from a unique perspective rather than presenting a detached, objective view.

The greatest challenge for Forest writers is finding balance. Their natural tendency is to go deep. Sometimes that means going so deep that they risk becoming incomprehensible to readers outside their immediate creative ecosystem. The most successful learn to create entry points, to build bridges that invite readers into their world without overwhelming them.

This approach requires remarkable creative courage. Forest writers must be willing to be vulnerable, to expose the intricate emotional landscapes that drive their storytelling. They create not just books, but entire universes of meaning, inviting readers to see the world through a lens both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Their writing becomes a bridge between individual experience and collective understanding. Where other ecosystems might see writing as a product or a trend, Forest writers see it as a living, breathing entity, constantly evolving, constantly revealing new layers of human complexity. They don't just write books. They create worlds where readers can discover new ways of understanding themselves.

Aquatic

Imagine storytelling not as a linear process of writing a book, but as an expansive ecosystem of narrative experiences. This is the world of the Aquatic writer who sees stories not as static objects, but as living, breathing universes waiting to be explored.

Aquatic writers understand that a story is no longer confined to the printed page. Where other writers see a book as an endpoint, Aquatics see it as a beginning, the first invitation into a much larger experience.

In fiction, this means creating narratives so rich and multidimensional that they naturally expand beyond traditional storytelling formats. Consider how George Lucas didn't just write Star Wars. He created an entire mythology that could be experienced through films, books, comics, games, and countless other media. Each format doesn't just supplement the story; it reveals new dimensions of the universe.

Non-fiction becomes equally immersive. An Aquatic writer doesn't simply share information. They design comprehensive learning experiences. Their books are gateways to entire ecosystems of knowledge, complete with complementary online courses, interactive workshops, community platforms, and multimedia resources that transform passive reading into active engagement.

The core of the Aquatic approach is understanding fan experience. These writers don't just create for an audience. They create with them. Every narrative decision considers how fans might interact with the story, how they might expand and explore the universe being constructed. It's a collaborative process where the boundary between creator and audience becomes wonderfully blurred.

This approach requires a remarkable breadth of skills. An Aquatic writer must be part author, part game designer, part brand manager, and part community builder. They need to understand not just storytelling, but user experience, transmedia storytelling, and the intricate dynamics of fan engagement.

The greatest risk for Aquatic writers is spreading themselves too thin, trying to create so many experiences that the core narrative loses its coherence. The most successful learn to create a strong, central vision that can naturally expand into multiple formats without losing its essential character.

This isn't about marketing or commercial strategy, but lies in understanding storytelling as a fundamentally interactive, expansive experience. An Aquatic writer doesn't just tell a story. They create a world that readers can inhabit, explore, and ultimately make their own.

Their books become invitations to step into entire universes of imagination. They don't just write stories. They build worlds that breathe, grow, and transform with every reader's interaction.

Finding Your Literary Ecosystem

Writing is not a singular, uniform path, but a vast landscape with multiple terrains, each offering its own unique possibilities for creative expression. There is no universal "right" way to write, only the way that most authentically resonates with your individual creative spirit.

Each Author Ecosystem represents a distinct approach to storytelling, a unique lens through which writers can understand their creative impulses. These aren't rigid categories, but fluid frameworks that help writers recognize their natural strengths and navigate their creative journey.

The Desert writer understands storytelling as a strategic dialogue with reader expectations, crafting narratives that feel simultaneously familiar and fresh. They are the market navigators, able to quickly identify and respond to emerging literary currents. When the wind shifts to a new trend, they will shift, too, content in writing for any audience, as long as they are entertained.

Grassland writers are the deep-root systems of literature, cultivating comprehensive worlds of understanding. Their approach is about depth, patience, and a commitment to exploring complex ideas with meticulous care. They don't just write stories but grow entire ecosystems of knowledge.

Tundra writers are the performance artists of storytelling, understanding that a book is more than a collection of pages. It's an experience. They stack narrative elements with precision, creating works that generate excitement and sweep readers into immersive journeys.

Forest writers transform storytelling into an act of personal revelation. Their strength lies in their ability to inject a unique perspective into every narrative, creating shared languages that invite readers into deeply personal universes of meaning.

Aquatic writers see storytelling as world-building, creating expansive narrative experiences that transcend traditional media. They understand that a story is no longer confined to a book, but can bloom into multiple formats, inviting interactive engagement.

No Author Ecosystem is better or worse than another. Each offers unique strengths and represents a valid approach to creative expression. We know successful authors in every ecosystem. The key is understanding your natural tendencies, embracing them, and learning how to leverage them most effectively.

Successful writers often evolve, incorporating elements from different Ecosystems as they grow. A Desert writer might develop the depth of a Grassland, a Forest writer might learn the strategic approach of a Desert. The boundaries are fluid, the possibilities endless.

Your writing journey is not about fitting into a predetermined mold, but about discovering the creative landscape that allows your voice to flourish most authentically. It's about understanding that your unique way of seeing the world is not a limitation, but your greatest creative asset.

In nature, ecosystems often blend at their edges, creating rich environments where two biomes coexist. For authors, these blended ecosystems represent a mix of creative tendencies and strategies that combine the strengths of two archetypes. However, blending ecosystems also brings challenges—writers must learn to harness both sides without becoming overwhelmed by competing tendencies. Below, we’ll explore six common blended ecosystems in detail and how writers can thrive in each.

Savannah: The Focused Trend Rider (Desert/Grassland)

The Savannah ecosystem is a writer’s blend of quick-trend adaptation and deep-rooted focus. Writers in this ecosystem are great at identifying emerging opportunities (Desert) while also grounding themselves in a solid foundation (Grassland). They chase relevant trends, quickly producing content that hits the market at the right time, but they also have the discipline to build a strong, long-term brand.

Strengths:

• Quick responsiveness to trends: Savannah writers are excellent at spotting emerging trends and acting on them swiftly, giving them an edge in content that feels fresh, relevant, and timely.

• Grounded in a core niche: Unlike writers who spread themselves too thin by chasing every trend, Savannah writers maintain a strong focus on a central topic or niche (Grassland), which gives them credibility and expertise.

• Balance of speed and substance: This combination allows writers to gain visibility in the short term through trending topics while ensuring their content has lasting value due to its depth.

Challenges:

• Risk of trend-chasing without depth: The Desert’s tendency to jump on trends quickly might make it difficult to maintain depth. Writers in the Savannah ecosystem must guard against sacrificing quality for speed.

• Burnout from trying to stay relevant: Constantly monitoring trends while also nurturing a long-term niche can be exhausting. If not managed properly, the drive to keep on top of everything could lead to creative fatigue.

• Perception of being a trend-hopper: There’s a risk that audiences might see Savannah writers as overly opportunistic if they’re not careful to balance trend-driven content with genuine expertise.

Actionable Steps:

• Set clear boundaries for trend adoption: Don’t chase every trend. Focus on those that align with your long-term goals and complement your niche expertise.

• Create evergreen content: While staying on top of trends is important, balance it with content that remains valuable even after the trend fades.

• Use timeboxing: Allocate specific periods to focus on trend-driven content and others to focus on deep, evergreen material, ensuring you don’t get burned out or distracted by too many short-term goals.

Bramble: The Deep Diver with Personal Flair (Grassland/Forest)

The Bramble ecosystem blends the focused, grounded work of Grassland writers with the personal, emotional engagement of Forest creators. Writers here are experts in their field, delivering high-quality content on a specific niche while also sharing their personalities and personal experiences. The result is deep, thoughtful content infused with relatable, human touches that resonate strongly with readers.

Strengths:

• Master of a niche with personal engagement: Bramble writers are not only experts in their field, but they also bring a personal voice that makes their content feel relatable and engaging. Their depth of knowledge (Grassland) combined with personal storytelling (Forest) fosters loyalty among readers.

• Stronger reader connections: The Forest aspect allows Bramble writers to build an emotional bond with their audience. Readers don’t just come for the information—they return for the author’s unique perspective and personality.

• Authenticity: Writers in the Bramble ecosystem often come across as more genuine because their work blends expertise with personal insight, making their content feel more like a conversation than a lecture.

Challenges:

• Struggle to maintain consistency: Balancing the desire to share personal stories and maintaining authority in a niche can be difficult. Writers might veer too far into personal territory, losing their focus on delivering valuable information.

• Vulnerability fatigue: Constantly drawing from personal experience can be emotionally draining. Forest writers often put their heart and soul into their work, which can lead to burnout if they don’t set boundaries.

• Niche vs. breadth tension: Bramble writers may feel torn between staying focused on their niche (Grassland) and expanding into more personal, diverse topics (Forest), which can create internal conflict over their content strategy.

Actionable Steps:

• Set content boundaries: Be clear on where personal stories add value and where they distract. Use personal anecdotes to enhance, not overshadow, your expertise.

• Establish a personal-niche ratio: Aim to have a balance in your content that blends 80% expertise and 20% personal narrative or another ratio that suits your goals and audience.

• Plan breaks: Personal writing can be exhausting. Schedule regular time off to avoid vulnerability fatigue and protect your emotional energy.

Glacier: The Launch Expert with Staying Power (Tundra/Grassland)

Glacier writers embody the high-energy, exciting launches of the Tundra, combined with the Grassland’s steady, long-term content production. These writers know how to create buzz around new projects, and they have the discipline to sustain that momentum over time with focused, detailed work. While some writers excel at either the excitement of launches or the grind of long-term content, Glacier writers master both.

Strengths:

• Great at building anticipation: Glacier writers excel at using high-energy, launch-focused strategies to generate excitement and build an initial audience.

• Long-term commitment: Once the launch excitement fades, they’re able to maintain and grow their audience with sustained, in-depth work, giving them an edge over writers who fade post-launch.

• Master of launch cycles: Glacier writers understand how to create momentum, using launches as strategic touchpoints throughout the year and capitalizing on the energy of each one to deepen their content further.

Challenges:

• Difficulty maintaining the energy: Tundra energy is intense, and Glacier writers may struggle to keep up that level of excitement throughout the year, especially if they are also trying to nurture long-term projects.

• Launch burnout: Constantly creating and managing launches can be overwhelming. Writers in this ecosystem must be careful to pace themselves or risk burning out from the pressure of frequent promotional cycles.

• Balancing excitement with content depth: The focus on high-energy launches can sometimes overshadow the need for depth, especially if the writer feels pressured to move on quickly to the next project without fully developing the current one.

Actionable Steps:

• Strategically space out launches: Don’t feel pressured to launch too often. Space out high-energy moments to allow for downtime and deeper work in between.

• Use momentum wisely: Capitalize on the energy of a launch to build deeper, more evergreen content that your audience can return to after the buzz dies down.

• Plan post-launch recovery time: Always schedule time to rest after a major launch. This will help you avoid burnout and allow you to refocus on the more in-depth aspects of your work.

Estuary: The Immersive Authority Builder (Grassland/Aquatic)

The Estuary ecosystem is a dynamic blend of the deep-rooted authority and consistency of the Grassland with the immersive, multi-format engagement of the Aquatic. Writers in this ecosystem don’t just publish great books, they create layered experiences that pull readers deeper into their story worlds, teachings, or thought leadership. They’re not just building a brand, they’re building a world fans want to live in.

Strengths:

• Evergreen expertise: Estuary authors craft timeless content that educates, transforms, or captivates. They’re seen as go-to experts or storytellers within their niche.

• Immersive experiences: From podcasts to games, merch to membership programs, Estuary creators engage across multiple formats to build a deep, multidimensional brand.

• Superfan magnetism: By combining credibility (Grassland) and emotional immersion (Aquatic), these writers create soul resonance. Their superfans don’t just buy books—they champion the brand, spread the word, and stick around for the long haul.

• Strategic alliances: Estuary authors thrive in symbiotic ecosystems. They co-create with other authors, bundle complementary offers, or partner on experiences like anthologies, podcast tours, or cross-promotions.

Challenges:

• Ecosystem complexity: Managing a multi-format content strategy while maintaining depth is a juggling act. Without boundaries, burnout or dilution can sneak in.

• Audience fragmentation: Readers might enter through different doors—books, YouTube, email, etc.—and never meet. Without intentional cross-pollination, your audience stays siloed.

• Slow growth curve: Grassland expertise takes time to build. Aquatic immersion takes time to deliver. The Estuary path is about longevity, not virality.

Actionable Steps:

• Design your world, then build outward: Anchor your efforts in a core book series, philosophy, or mission. Let everything else—video, merch, events—radiate from that.

• Nurture superfans like co-creators: Give your most loyal followers behind-the-scenes access, early content, or decision-making power. Let them help shape your world. (Think Patreon, Discord, VIP newsletters.)

• Use strategic partnerships as expansion packs: Team up with creators whose audiences complement yours. Think: co-branded launches, limited series podcasts, shared universe projects, or bundle deals.

• Map the user journey: Plot how someone might first discover your work (a short story, a podcast episode) and how they move through your ecosystem to become a buyer, fan, and ambassador.

• Balance pillars and portals: Grassland content (books, evergreen essays) are your pillars; Aquatic expressions (videos, group chats, merch) are portals. Use both to deepen your ecosystem.

Tiaga: The Passionate Builder with a Personal Touch (Tundra/Forest)

The Tiaga ecosystem blends the Tundra’s love of high-energy launches with the Forest’s nurturing, personal engagement. Writers in this ecosystem build strong initial excitement for their work but also focus on fostering long-term, personal connections with their audience. Tiaga writers excel at blending big, bold ideas with heartfelt, emotionally-driven content, ensuring that their readers stay invested long after the launch buzz fades.

Strengths:

• Incredible audience engagement: Tiaga writers are great at making their audience feel like part of the journey, building deep, emotional connections through personal stories and engagement.

• High visibility with authenticity: The combination of energetic launches and personal content creates a winning formula—readers are drawn to the excitement but stay for the authentic connection.

• Fan loyalty: Because Tiaga writers engage deeply with their audience on a personal level, their readers often become loyal fans, eager to support their future work.

Challenges:

• Difficulty balancing launch energy and personal connections: The high-energy demands of launching new projects can make it difficult to maintain the personal, nurturing relationships required to keep readers engaged.

• Risk of emotional exhaustion: Constantly pouring personal stories and energy into your audience can lead to burnout, especially if you’re also managing the intensity of Tundra-style launches.

• Over-reliance on personal engagement: While personal stories build loyalty, they may distract from delivering consistent, high-quality content. Tiaga writers must balance their personal touch with strong, valuable content.

Actionable Steps:

• Automate audience engagement where possible: Use tools to manage your community and handle routine interactions, giving you more time to focus on content creation and personal touchpoints that matter.

• Build in downtime after launches: Tiaga writers should schedule dedicated rest periods after major launches to recharge emotionally and creatively.

• Create content that speaks for itself: Make sure that your content is strong enough to stand on its own without relying entirely on personal connections to keep your audience engaged.

Arctic: The Immersive Experience Creator (Tundra/Aquatic)

The Arctic ecosystem is where the Tundra's fast-paced launch strategies meet the Aquatic ecosystem’s expansive, immersive content experience. Arctic writers are great at pulling their audience into a rich, multi-faceted world that spans various formats, from books to podcasts to merchandise. Their work is both fast-paced and deeply immersive, keeping readers engaged with a world they can explore long after the initial launch excitement fades.

Strengths:

• Master of multi-platform content: Arctic writers know how to create immersive experiences that pull readers in through multiple formats, giving them a wide reach and deep engagement.

• Ability to generate buzz and sustain it: They can capitalize on the Tundra’s launch energy to build excitement, but they keep the momentum going by offering more than just one format of content, keeping readers engaged long-term.

• Cross-platform loyalty: Their audience often follows them across different media, creating a strong, loyal fanbase that engages with their work on multiple levels (e.g., reading, listening, and buying).

Challenges:

• Managing complexity: The Arctic ecosystem involves juggling multiple formats (audio, visual, written), which can be overwhelming for a writer who is also trying to launch and promote.

• Content overload: With so many moving parts, Arctic writers risk creating an overwhelming amount of content that’s hard for their audience to keep up with or that dilutes the overall brand.

• Time management: The fast pace of Tundra launches combined with the deep immersion of Aquatic ecosystems can lead to burnout if the writer doesn’t carefully manage their time.

Actionable Steps:

• Use delegation or automation: Consider hiring a team or using automation tools to handle some of the multi-platform logistics, allowing you to focus on creativity and content.

• Plan staggered content: Release different formats of content in phases to avoid overwhelming your audience and give yourself time to focus on quality over quantity.

• Leverage cross-promotion: Use the buzz from each new launch to drive attention to your other formats, ensuring that each piece of content builds off the last.

Swamp: The Multi-Passionate Connector (Forest/Aquatic)

In the Swamp ecosystem, writers combine the Forest’s deep, personal engagement with the Aquatic's multi-format, immersive experience. These writers excel at making their audience feel emotionally connected to their work while offering a wide range of content across various platforms—whether it’s through writing, podcasts, merchandise, or events. The Swamp ecosystem allows for rich creative exploration across multiple avenues, providing a deeply interconnected experience for readers.

Strengths:

• Strong personal connections: Swamp writers excel at building close-knit communities, making their audience feel personally invested in their work and career.

• Diverse content ecosystem: They are able to provide a range of content across different formats, allowing for multiple entry points to engage with their audience.

• Holistic brand experience: Swamp writers often build a cohesive, well-rounded brand that resonates with fans, making them more likely to support the writer across various platforms and media.

Challenges:

• Overextension: Managing multiple formats while maintaining deep emotional connections can spread Swamp writers too thin, potentially leading to burnout or loss of quality.

• Difficulty maintaining focus: With so many creative projects happening across various platforms, it can be easy to lose focus or let certain elements fall by the wayside, leading to inconsistencies in content or brand messaging.

• Audience segmentation: When offering so many different formats, there’s a risk of fragmenting your audience—some may prefer podcasts, others written work, making it harder to keep a unified fanbase.

Actionable Steps:

• Set clear priorities: Focus on one or two main platforms at a time, ensuring each format gets the attention it deserves before expanding to other areas.

• Cross-pollinate content: Ensure that each piece of content across formats ties into your overall brand and message, making it easier for your audience to follow you between platforms.

• Create community hubs: Use platforms like social media groups or newsletters to bring your audience together in one place, helping them feel connected to you and each other, regardless of which format they engage with.

Blended ecosystems offer unique opportunities for authors to harness the best of two worlds, but they also present challenges. Balancing these ecosystems takes careful planning and self-awareness, but when done right, it allows writers to reach new heights both creatively and financially.

Whether you’re combining the trend-savvy nature of the Savannah with the deep focus of the Bramble or mixing the high-energy Glacier with the immersive Arctic, finding your unique blend can help you build a sustainable and rewarding writing career.

One of the most interesting ways to parse The Author Ecosystems is how each type deals with trends in the marketplace. Just like the easiest way for me to tell your Enneagram is by seeing what you default to in stress, one of the most decisive ways to learn an author’s ecosystem is to find out how they think about trends in the market and how it relates to their author business.

Depending on your ecosystem, one of these will likely resonate above the others and should give you an insight into how you to build your author business. It should also give you insight into how the other ecosystems think about their own author business to give you opportunities to evolve.

Remember, the goal of every ecosystem is to evolve and incorporate all five ecosystems into their business. However, before we can do that we need to find one line of business that works for us and resonates above the others. If you’re struggling to find success, it’s probably because the way you build your books is in direct contradiction to how your ecosystem thinking about trends.

Desert– Trend riding

A Desert is deep in the thick of their genre, gobbling up precious reader data in Facebook groups, sitting in silence and taking notes as they watch how the industry is flowing so they can accurately predict the next trend and ride it like a wave.

Deserts are experts in knowing when a trend is losing its arbitrage and have the preternatural ability to catch the next trend before too many authors saturate the market.

I define arbitrage as the difference, or delta, between supply and demand. When there is more demand than supply, then there is an arbitrage opportunity. The higher the arbitrage the more a Desert can milk that opportunity before the gap closes…

…and that gap will always close. Authors will always, given enough time, find the pockets of underserved readers and start writing for them, if for no other reason than because K-lytics exists to do this work for authors. Their entire business model is about showing authors emerging categories where the demand for a type of book exceeds the supply of them.

A Desert is simply conscious enough to recognize when the tides turn. If you’re not a Desert, you’ll probably enter a market well after the trend has peaked and you won’t be able to write fast enough to take advantage of the next one, either.

Grassland – Trend weaving

Grasslands highly value data just like Deserts, but instead of looking at the current trends, they are trying to peg an emerging trend 1-2 years down the road and move the industry toward that north star on the horizon. A great example of this is , who recognized the industry trend toward direct sales years ago and started to create content that buoyed our company to take advantage of them when those trends emerged. Along the way, she wrote about other things, but by the time direct sales became a hot topic we already had several books on the subject and were able to become a go-to source for information.

For a Grassland to stay relevant in the short term, they practice trend weaving, which allows them to take hot trends and thread them into their existing topic. While a Desert will hit a trend perfectly, a Grassland hits a trend at 90% of perfect because they are always trying to steer the conversation toward that topic.

An unhealthy Grassland will see a trend on the horizon and lose focus on how to weave their topic together with what’s happening currently to build relevancy until people are ready to talk about that topic.

I got a ton of blank stares for talking about Kickstarter back in 2015, well before the trend was even a blip on the horizon. Meanwhile, Monica was able to weave Kickstarter and direct sales into the prevailing narrative of the industry and make people care, so that by the time the Brandon Sanderson campaign raised $41 million we were positioned as the only expert with a book on the topic, and were able to leverage that into major opportunities.

Tundra – Trend stacking

Tundras love to stack evergreen tropes and seasonal trends on top of each other, making an irresistible package that turns every eye in an industry when they launch a book. They aren’t concerned with current or future trends. They are looking for trends that stand the test of time.

I made a huge error when moving my Godsverse Chronicle graphic novels into novels because the trends that worked at conventions or even in comics weren’t the same as the ones present in the book market. The first books I wrote (Death, Doom, Hell, and Ruin) missed the mark so badly that I wrote four new novels (Magic, Evil, Time, and Heaven) to slot in before them to help better hit those trends in the book market that I missed. I additionally had to change the titles and covers multiple times as I learned the market better and how to signal correctly to readers. Death started as Katrina Hates Everything before it became The Gods’ Sin, then Death Followed Behind Her until it finally became Death and got a new cover treatment. Before that, it was a series of three short novellas at a time well before short reads were in vogue.

I learned the evergreen tropes in fantasy were dragons and fairy tales (and to a lesser extent mythology), so my next series The Obsidian Spindle Saga, featured them both prominently, and I never had to change the titles (though I did redesign the covers for their retail release).

As the name suggests, Tundras are experts at seasonal launches that take into account the trends of a season. They are not looking to capitalize on a trend the first time through. Instead, they’re looking for a trend that has come around multiple times so they can capitalize when it comes around again. They are great at feeling the “vibes” and knowing when to launch for maximum impact and visibility.

For instance, I was the one who told Monica to drop everything so we could make The Kickstarter Accelerator happen right after Sanderson’s campaign ended. While Monica knew the trend was coming, I was able to know when the fervor was at its zenith.

Tundras often write 1-2 years ahead of their slate and sit on books until the vibes are right to strike. They use a combination of data, gut instinct, and seasonal buying behavior to plan their promotional calendar and sit right between the data-heavy ecosystems (Deserts and Grasslands) and the gut-heavy ecosystems (Forests and Aquatics) in how they think about trends.

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Forest – Trend twisting

Forests seem to think that their ecosystem justifies writing any and every weird thing they want and that by holding to their unique energy they will eventually break through and have success due to sheer force of will alone, but that’s not quite true.

Yes, you need to listen to your gut more than other ecosystems, but a healthy Forest is very interested in trends. However, they are most interested in using existing trends and twisting them in a way that resonates with their readers in a different way than any of the ecosystems we mentioned above.

One example we learned about recently was a successful author who took the trope of the “alphahole” and asked, “What if instead of the leader of this shifter wolf pack was a jerk like I’ve read dozens of times, they worked more like a real wolf pack and all worked lovingly together”.

That twist takes a popular trope and gives it a specific twist that long-time fans will enjoy. They don’t write satire. They deeply love their genre, read broadly in it, and twist those tropes lovingly in ways that will delight readers. Too often people poke fun at genres they don’t like in books and that never works. Readers hate being insulted, but many can appreciate the flaws in their genre when they see them highlighted.

Forests should target their books to readers who have read broadly and understand the “canon” of a genre so they can appreciate the unique spin an author brings to the genre. Because of this, Forests can enter a genre late and have success while Deserts almost always need to be at the front of a trend setting the pace the reader expectations that Forests will twist.

One reason a Forest writes in so many different genres is because they find similar themes and tropes they can twist in different places. While a Grassland is loyal to a topic, a Forest is loyal to their themes, which is why their fans more than any other type will read anything they do. They aren’t reading the genre. They are reading the theme.

Aquatic– Trend making

Then you have the Aquatic, over in the corner making their own trend from scratch and building slowly over time to craft their thriving fanbase for their universe. However, they can learn a lot from the above ecosystems by taking hot trends and weaving them into their universe or twisting a trend in a way that brings in new readers.

In tech, there are five types of adopters: innovators, early adopters, the early majority, the late majority, and laggards. Each one of these has different buying habits and reasons for joining. The innovators are usually buying something because it’s new and exciting. Show them something new, like your universe, and they will buy just for the kitsch of it, but there are few of them compared to the other types. Aquatics tend to stick pretty close to the innovators, who supported them early, but in order to grow they need to move through the adopter stages by varying their output.

The classic example we use is Star Wars, which is so clearly an Aquatic franchise. Not only did George Lucas bring in new formats with books, action figures, and other merchandise, but more recently Kathleen Kennedy started using hot trends to bring in new fans. The Mandalorian is a very simple space western that appeals to a very different viewership than A New Hope. Every new TV series is a chance to bring in new fans. Marvel has started to do much the same thing, which makes sense since they are both owned by the same company and are both targeting the majority (both early and late) who make up most of their fans.

My friend wrote a cozy mystery series into their existing fantasy world to capture new readers and give new ways to hook people. Aquatics are very concerned with expanding into different modalities, but they can find a lot of value in writing into different areas to make their universe relatable to more people.

The Ecosystem Trend Cycle

One of the most interesting parts about the Author Ecosystems is what we’re calling the “Trend Cycle”, which looks like this:

• Aquatics start doing something interesting that gets traction with an audience.

• Grasslands notice that traction and start trying to figure out what is happening. Once they have it figured out, they start moving the industry toward it.

• Deserts see the massive arbitrage in a trend and start building the market for it until it finds equilibrium.

• Tundras seek out the evergreen trope in a trend and maximize it for profit and efficiency.

• Forests enter a mature market and twist stale trends to breath new life into them.

• Aquatics start the cycle again.

What’s really interesting about this is how it plays with the technology adoption curve.

The adoption curve concept, also known as the diffusion of innovations theory, was first introduced by Everett Rogers in his 1962 book, “Diffusion of Innovations.” Rogers was a sociologist who studied how new ideas and technologies spread within communities.

Rogers categorised people into five groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. He found that each group had its own characteristics and adopted new technology at a different rate. -Omniplex Learning

What this tells us is that Aquatics and Forests are both next to each other and on very different ends of that curve. It seems like Forests and Aquatics are next to each other, but Aquatics are really at the start of a new trend and the back end of an existing trend.

The reason Aquatics end up on either end of this curve is because their job is to find the point of improvement in any trend and pull them together into something new. A classic example is Southwest, which took dozens of problems in the industry and fixed them all at once, creating an ecosystem that couldn’t be replicated by anyone else. They only have a fractional share of the market, but those who use them are incredibly loyal.

Another great example is Apple, which for decades only had a 1-2% fractional share of the market, but because of how they integrated everything in a novel way they had loyal fans and no competition could replicate them.

Even though these were massively innovative companies, both Southwest and Apple took advantage of burgeoning markets to build around that took off. If they didn’t have the market rising behind them, the trend they created would have fizzled and, likely, died.

In books, we think of somebody like Cassandra Clare, who took Twilight, along with Supernatural suspense and mythology, and created something brand new, or an author like RJ Blain, who combined paranormal romance, romantic comedy, mystery, and thriller together in a way nobody had thought of before and now owns the category of “Magical Romantic Comedy…with a body count.”

Something else that this tells us is that Forests often enter markets too early, and Deserts need to exit markets before they hit that equilibrium. Meanwhile, Tundras are probably right in the middle, trying to time the market when excitement is at its peak. Deserts exiting a market should be a bellwether that it’s time to launch imminently.

It’s important to note this has nothing to do with how Deserts think of fandom. They are still trying to hit the middle of the market, but they want to enter a market when fewer people know about it, specifically fewer authors who know about it to drown readers with a flood of supply.

Aquatics generally create categories and then benefit from the whole rest of the adoption curve. All the good things point back to them, but if it doesn’t catch they will likely crash and burn. Then, Grasslands should enter in the Innovator/Early Adopter phase. Deserts should enter during the Early Adopter/Early Majority phase, Tundras should enter right at the zenith between Early and Late Majority before interest wanes, and Forests should enter in the Late Majority into mature markets.

Forests, more than any other ecosystem, are prone to see a trend and leap on it before the tropes are commonplace and when that happens their habit of twisting tropes brings confusion. If you look at the fantasy category, today’s series builds upon J.R.R. Tolkien, mythology, and everything that came before to make those tropes commonplace. Once the majority of people in a genre know the tropes, then you’re twists will be delightful instead of befuddling.

Grasslands, then, should spend a lot of time searching out Aquatics who are doing novel things, and Deserts should draft from Grasslands to find new upcoming trends. Meanwhile, Tundras should wait to enter a market until it’s at its peak, which is something the movie industry tries to track to time their releases.

Final Thoughts:

It feels from this analysis that Deserts and Grasslands almost need to go first into a trend to set the tropes. Once they’ve established the tone, timber, and tropes of how to write a book that fans will love and resonate with, a Tundra can analyze the evergreen tropes and Forests can twist those tropes to find new and interesting ways into their theme.

Perhaps even an Aquatic needs to set the trend by developing it from nothing into something viable before the Desert gets there. Then, the Desert picks up on something interesting and starts to build out the tropes until the category is mature, attracting the other ecosystems to join.

If that’s true, then one of the reasons a Forest wouldn’t be successful moving into a new trope too soon is because the category isn’t mature enough to have the tropes become a shared language between readers, and thus the twist the Forests give to those tropes confuses readers instead of delights them. Additionally, while it seems that Aquatics and Deserts are at opposite poles, they might have a more symbiotic relationship than previously thought, with Aquatics breathing life into a new subcategory and Deserts stabilizing it in kind.

One of the easiest ways to get healthy in your ecosystem is the stick closely to how it maximizes the value of both long-term and short-term trends. If you are a Desert, maybe don’t twist that trope because your subgenre isn’t ready for that yet. One reason Forests do well in established genres is because they are playing upon the shared language of the community. Until people have a base understanding of how tropes work, twisting them doesn’t resonate as well. Once a market is saturated, then people are looking for new twists on older stories.

In the same way, Tundras traffic in excitement, so launching that series before interest is at a fervor won’t do you any favors. Other ecosystems trying to get to #1 in the Amazon store fail to recognize that Tundras drop new releasing into a hungry audience, once the trend has come back around. They aren’t looking to stay ahead of a trend because they know if they wait, the trend will emerge again. Then, they will be ready to capitalize, and why if they aren’t using evergreen tropes their work will be in vain.

If you’re ready to evolve, trying to incorporate these different methods of engagement can fast-track your growth. Once you understand how each ecosystem deals with trends, it makes it easier to dissect their launches and find the special sauce that works for them, and how to bring that into your own business.

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When authors start learning about the Author Ecosystems, they generally map it onto their own experience to learn about themselves, but our system is equally powerful in building out a team around your work. Whether you’re working by yourself, co-writing with a partner, working in a shared world, building an anthology, expanding your business with a small team, or developing a full publishing slate, the author ecosystem can help you grow your business.

We’ve already talked extensively about the evolution path for every ecosystem, including how to identify ecosystems in other people for the sake of your personal growth, but not everyone wants to embrace every ecosystem inside themselves. Many authors would prefer to hire for different positions inside their business, and we think that’s great. It’s probably essential to hire beyond yourself to succeed as an author.

At Writer MBA, being able to identify the qualities we need in a role and map them onto a specific ecosystem, then hire somebody in that ecosystem, has revolutionized our hiring practices. We know that we don’t do everything well. For instance, both Monica and I are just dreadful Forests. That might seem kind of incredible since The Author Ecosystems is an intrinsically Forest-based shared language and culture system, but we’re not good at engaging with fans or fostering that culture in any of our businesses.

Instead, we look for people to partner with who fill in our deficiencies. Mel Jolly and Tawdra Kandle, the conference director for our Writer MBA conference are both incredible Forests with heavy Aquatic tendencies. They are great at the engage and delight areas of the flywheel that we laid out previously. Meanwhile, Monica and I are great at the Attract stage of the flywheel and in building a sales funnel. Monica can embrace her inner Desert through analyzing data, a natural skill of a Grassland, and I can build out the top of the funnel by starting at the bottom and working up, a natural strength of a Tundra.

Even though we would love to hire a Desert who was naturally great at those aspects, our biggest deficits have been in the Forest and Aquatic bits of our business, which is where Mel and Tawdra shine.

So, let’s talk about how to use the Author Ecosystems to build out a team inside your business. This is one of the few times where you will find us breaking from our normal format of talking about the ecosystems in the standard Desert, Grassland, Tundra, Forest, Aquatic order. I think it’s more important to visualize these positions when they would be relevant to your business instead of how we’ve been talking about them so far.

Before I get to it, I want to state that if you work in one of these roles and aren’t the ecosystem we recommend seeking out for that task, it doesn’t make you bad at your job. There are aspects of every ecosystem that can help in each of these roles, and you might be great at embracing bits of an ecosystem that is not your own. This is only a thought exercise.

Hire 1: Editorial

Almost every author’s first hire will be an editor, whether that’s a developmental editor, a copy editor, or a proofreader.

In this role, you’ll likely be looking for somebody detail-oriented who can hold a lot of disparate threads in their head at any one time. An editor’s job is to make sure everything flows properly and makes sense as a cohesive whole. Because of this, the ideal person for this role is a Grassland, whose superpower is depth.

We believe this is why most anthologies and shared world projects fail. These types of projects are almost always proposed by Forests, who want to build community and shared language through collaboration, and they fall apart either because those Forests misjudge the market or because they have no interest in making sure everything fits as one cohesive whole. Additionally, Forests attract a lot of Forests, who don’t like writing to spec and thus all the stories are wildly off the mark.

Grasslands, with their ability to forecast the future and deep-seated interest in intricate detail, are perfect for this role in any organization. If you’re hiring at a publishing company, look for Grasslands to fill your EIC roles and plan out your content calendar. Grasslands are also great at predicting cover trends and making sure you’re meeting the market where it will be in 18-24 months when your books launch.

Hire 2: Community Management

Once you’ve had some success, the next place authors usually turn to for help is in community management. Since half the industry is filled with Deserts, Grasslands, and Tundras who are generally uninterested in community above writing new stories for them, this makes sense. Some authors have a natural affinity for community and fostering engagement with their readers, and those kinds of people are going to be equally good at helping you build your community.

It should be no surprise that we think Forests are perfect for this role. These are the people who love to dig deep with fans and create posts specifically for fan engagement instead of growth. They are masters at getting people to open up and constructing a community in a way that feels like a safe space.

Aside from Forests and Aquatics, the other Ecosystems are most interested in growth above engagement, and you really need to pick one or the other as your target.

One of the things I learned by hiring my own engagement people is that engagement requires completely rewiring your brain to write posts that foster that kind of community. You can’t just put “Leave us a comment” in a post and expect engagement. With The Author Stack, I can tell which articles are going to have high engagement before they get out the door.

Ironically, these are often the articles with the lowest overall readership, but they’ll have 10x the comments of another article even though fewer people read it. I’ve tried hard to write the kinds of articles that get tons of engagement and I’m just not good at it. It’s a skill deeply embedded into the writing process, which is one reason Forests also make good editors. They will bring that out of your work and make you feel seen in the process. However, if you have a deeply complex world, they are less good at holding all of it in their head than focusing on really great character interactions that resonate with your readers.

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Hire 3: Ads management

The biggest mistake that writers make when building a team is hiring the same person to handle their community and their ads. I have been running ads for years and the only constant has been that the ads with the best engagement are never the ones that get the most sales conversion.

If you want sales from your ads, it’s best not to hire a Forest to run them. Because so many authors hire for community first, the vast majority of VAs are Forests. Authors see how well they do in one aspect of their business and try to jam them into another part they hate, namely advertising, with disastrous results.

That’s because ads require a ton of optimizations and data analysis, which goes against every strength of a Forest, so they almost always struggle with ads. Deserts, on the other hand, are amazing at ads management (as are Grasslands) because they love digging into the data. Additionally, they will know what’s hot right now, because they follow that type of thing, and stay on top of how to get the most out of your ad spend.

Deserts also make amazing cover designers because they are not swayed by a community or even their author clients. They are locked into following what’s hot in the market right now. For this reason, if you have a Desert cover designer, do not engage them until very late in the process, because they are going to give you a cover that’s hot at the moment. If you hold it for years, your cover won’t reflect those trends and your book will suffer for it.

The one constant thing we see in advertising is that you should absolutely not hire your Forest VA to run your ads, even if they are amazing at running your community. Hire a Desert or a Grassland to run your ads, or help foster your VA to evolve their Desert energy to help you, but don’t expect them to be great out of the gate.

Hire 4: Launch team

Eventually, your author business will grow to the point where you’re capping out at what you can earn with ad optimizations and community management alone, and want to bring on somebody to help you launch better. That might mean getting to #1 in the store, packaging your books so people spend more money, or planning your prelaunch more effectively to maximize excitement.

This is where a Tundra can really help you. By the time you get to this point, you’ve probably got a slamming series, with an engaged community, and your ads are profitable. Now, you need to expand your profit and bring more attention to every launch, and Tundras traffic in excitement. They can help you put together a more powerful offer for your series that will get the attention of the industry, and help you take advantage of every day of your launch.

These are the PR consultants who craft your sales pitch so it’s as enticing to as many people as possible. These are the editors that you bring on to help you incorporate more evergreen trends and tropes into your work for maximum effectiveness. Tundras can really help with a “USA Today list run”, if those even exist anymore, to get you a lot of exposure and sales in a concentrated timeframe. If you’ve been writing in relative obscurity and you are ready to get noticed, or especially if you launching a Kickstarter, you want a Tundra on your team.

Hire 5: Brand expansion

Now that you’re rocking and rolling, having piqued the interest of the industry and shown you have a viable brand, you’ll want to expand outside of books into other modalities, and this is where an Aquatic can be especially helpful.

It usually takes them a long time to get their own brand built from scratch, but they can be like gasoline on the fire of a successful business because they naturally understand the different areas where you can expand your brand. Whether it’s into new platforms or new formats, Aquatics always seem to know the important players and have relationships they can leverage to grow your business quickly. You might not think of hiring an Aquatic because their business is usually small until it explodes, but their minds work in a way very different from the average author and they can be an invaluable addition to your team.

Additionally, many successful authors want to hold events or special offers to delight their fans, and Aquatics are masters of this type of delight. They are walking bundles of joy to fans because they are always looking for ways to delight them with something new. This is why they have the highest brand loyalty of any ecosystem.

Final thoughts

No matter your ecosystem, partnering with people in other ecosystems can help you grow. Whenever I go onto a podcast hosted by a Forest, I can almost always make it their most watched episode because I bring the excitement, while their articles on my publication almost always have incredible engagement, helping build loyalty to what I’m doing on my own.

As a Tundra, I often partner with successful authors to give their launches a boost, and implementing my strategies usually gives them the best launch of my career, and better than I can do on my own.

It wasn’t until Monica, a Grassland, and me, a Tundra, built a company together that we got the kind of traction either of us wanted, and bringing in universally loved Forests and Aquatics like Mel and Tawdra made everyone want to work with us because they already wanted to work with them.

While we should all be working to evolve ourselves, to expand your business it almost always means looking outside ourselves and partnering or hiring with other ecosystems to get where we want to go.

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and I did a lot of research this past year, both digging into data and having conversations with writers about their businesses. We found there are five evolution levels in a writer’s career. Knowing both your ecosystem and your evolution level allows you to triangulate the advice you take and the advice you give to others.

Here are the five levels we found through our research. Please remember, these ecosystems are about marketing and sales success, so if you are not even ready to think about that kind of thing, then you would be a Level 0.

• Level 1 - Inert. Authors at this level don’t even know how to start doing things because it’s so overwhelming. They are pulled in every direction and feel like they are drowning in information from every direction. In order to get out of this level, you need to start doing something and it doesn’t much matter what you do.

• Level 2 - Developing. Authors at this level have started doing things, which is great, but nothing is working. They are following all the best practices as best they can, but they are failing at everything they try. If you want to get to the next level, you have to find something that works and latch onto it. NOTE: You probably won’t know your ecosystem until you get out of this stage, and that’s okay. Until you know what works, you are just using what feels right to you. Once you know what works, then you’ll have a better handle on it.

• Level 3 - Emergent. Authors at this level have found something that works, but they are also doing all sorts of other things that aren’t working. To get out of this level, you need to shed everything that’s not working and double down on things that are working for your ecosystem.

• Level 4 - Evolved. Authors at this level have fully embraced their ecosystem and are making money, but they are capped out at what they can earn without evolving beyond what they’ve been doing. In order to exit this level, you need to integrate other ecosystems into your author business.

• Level 5 - Expanded. At this top level, authors have found ways to integrate new bits into their business that help them continuously grow.

If you know you are a level 3 Desert (we call that a D3), then so much suddenly becomes clear to you. For instance, you know that the thing you should be focused on right now is optimizations to get from level 3 to level 4. You also know you should be focusing on finding the next hottest trope in your genre and writing a bunch of books in it before the arbitrage goes away.

You also know that you should be focused on learning from other Deserts who can help you embrace the qualities that will help you thrive. Conversely, if you’re a level 4 Desert (D4), then you know that you should be focused on learning from other ecosystems to help you expand.

One of the biggest things that hampers authors is that they try to expand too quickly into other ecosystems. While you should be testing things to find what works at level 2, once you have found those things that work you should be shedding everything else in level 3 to double down on what’s working to push through into success. Once you have had success, then and only then should you start adding other ecosystems back into your business.

Each stage has its own growth metrics.

• Are you inert? Then you need to settle and start somewhere, anywhere.

• Are you developing? Keep testing and experimenting with different ecosystems to find something that works for you.

• Are you emergent? It’s time to double down on what’s working and cut things that aren’t so you can focus your attention and find success.

• Are you evolved? Now it’s time to start integrating new things into your business to allow you to build.

• Are you expanded? Awesome. Keep going.

One thing to remember about these levels is that you can ascend or descend them. Authors often think that once they are a level 3, they can never descend back to level 2, but more often than not this descent is a major cause of burnout.

Strategies that have worked for years can suddenly start failing, which causes an author to double down and double down again, losing ground with each iteration until they collapse in a heap from exhaustion.

This is why it’s so important to double down quickly once you find something that works, so you can create a stable income and then start incorporating other ecosystems into your business before those strategies lose efficacy.

Most authors become stuck in level 3, getting distracted by shiny objects while their business stagnates and they fall back into level 2, only to continue that cycle again and again until they burn out. If instead we can double down on what’s working quickly without getting distracted, then we can push through level 3 and start building out systems in level 4 to make our businesses more resilient.

The vast majority of authors we talk to are stuck between level 2 and level 3. They are either floundering to find something that works or using all their energy on actions that don’t work instead of focusing on those things that do.

Most authors will never get out of level 3 because they are bogged down with actions that have marginal efficacy to them. Instead, they are in a continuous cycle between level 2 and level 3. They are so tired that they can’t get enough momentum to achieve escape velocity into level 4.

But, let’s say you have reached level 4, how do you evolve beyond your ecosystem? After all, focusing on one ecosystem for a while is great, and gives you something to fall back on in times of trouble, but a robust author business needs multiple ecosystems and streams of income working together so that when one fails they can pivot their business quickly.

We’ve charted evolution paths for each ecosystem, and while there are commonalities between them, each one is unique.

As we go through this, it’s important to remember that when we talk about “evolving into an ecosystem”, we aren’t telling you to abandon your base ecosystem. Instead, you are incorporating aspects of the other ecosystems into your business in ways that make sense to create a stronger author business.

Here is a possible evolution path for each ecosystem, though you might see something different in your own business that makes you take a different path.

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Desert

• Forest - Forests are the most antithetical to Deserts, but creating a shared language and making your books stickier solves one of the biggest Desert weaknesses, creating ephemeral books that stop generating revenue quickly. Forests are great at creating a shared language, and we think you should be incorporating that part earlier in your journey.

• Aquatic - Most Deserts want to evolve into Aquatics first, but Aquatics are the hardest and most expensive to get going, and the most superfan focused. That said, you know how to drive traffic, and now that you’ve gotten your books hookier, you can start turning all those casual readers into superfans.

• Grassland - Since both Deserts and Grasslands are data-heavy ecosystems, it’s relatively easy for Deserts to start incorporating longer series and content marketing into their businesses.

• Tundra - Since Deserts are TOFU experts and Tundras are BOFU experts, you’ll supercharge your ecosystem by being able to create irresistible offers that your newly minted superfans will love.

Grassland

• Tundra - Grasslands are all flywheel, and Tundras are all funnel, so it makes sense to start your evolution journey by embracing your inner Tundra. The biggest problem for a Grassland is standing up and saying “Did you know you could buy this?” That is the biggest strength of a Tundra.

• Forest - Forests are all about shared language and developing a community of readers who can communicate with each other, which would be a huge asset for a Grassland, who generally have the ear of influential people and can move the direction of an industry already because of their intense grasp of their topic, but don’t have a shared language to bring people deeper into their universe.

• Aquatic - Aquatics focus heavily on slow growth and super-fandom. They are building their own category across many years, which aligns with a Grassland’s desire to be future-focused. However, Grasslands are moving the industry to a point on the horizon that is inevitable, so that when the industry arrives there they are the authority. Meanwhile, Aquatics are shining a light on something that nobody even knows they need, which is almost antithetical to the ethos of the Grassland. For that reason, it probably makes sense to leave Aquatic evolution toward the end of your journey.

• Desert - Grasslands are very long-term focused, while Deserts are concerned with immediate success. While we don’t think Grasslands should immediately start embracing the short-term wins that come easily to a Desert, being able to capture attention by using existing virality can help funnel readers into the largesse of a Grassland’s catalog.

Tundra

• Aquatic - Aquatics take the longest to spin up for most ecosystems, but Tundras are great at injecting cash infusions into a business, so it would make sense to start this work from the beginning of your evolution journey. You should also be thinking about creating your category across every launch from the beginning of your career. It will just take a long time to bring everything together, but for a Tundra, you should be thinking about your category from your first launch, and how to make each one feed into an overall whole. The more you can use your launches to complement each other, the better you’ll be in the long run.

• Grassland - A Tundra is a funnel without a flywheel, and a Grassland is a great flywheel, especially when it comes to attracting new people into their orbit. Tundras desperately need somewhere to send people who get through their funnel and to warm new people up so they’re excited for their next project. Whether it’s a Grassland or an Aquatic, Tundras grow best when they have one huge universe or topic to pour all their work into so it keeps growing over time. Even if you’re writing a lot of disparate things, think about putting them under one umbrella so that all your effort isn’t wasted after each launch.

• Desert - Deserts are masters of the opt-in while Tundras are the masters of the irresistible offer. Once you have your ecosystem solid, then it’s time to keep funneling people in and learning how to do it on autopilot.

• Forest - Creating a shared language between your launches will help you craft a narrative to bring your disparate projects together in an umbrella everyone can use to get excited about your work.

Forest

• Grassland - You have a pretty great retention and escalation path for people to fall in love with. However, you’ll get a lot out of taking your shared language and creating longer series with better content marketing around them. Studying data like a Grassland will help you make better long-term decisions once you have some stability under you.

• Desert - Since you already have great engagement, now it’s time to bring people into your universe. Combined with your inner Grassland, a Desert will constantly bring in leads and readers into your orbit.

• Tundra - Forests take a long time to grow, but they grow quicker if they can create big spectacle launches that help bring attention to their work, and the more you can use evergreen tropes to help draw attention to your work. Both of these are huge strengths of a Tundra.

• Aquatic - Forests are great at engaging with fans, and Aquatics are the ultimate superfan ecosystem. They are all about delighting their fans, and creating a huge epic universe across many formats for them to play in once they join up. While your ecosystem grows slowly, you can be using Aquatic tactics to help monetize them across many different mediums.

Aquatic

• Desert - Getting better at opt-ins is something that will bring a lot more people into your universe. You already know how to turn casual readers into superfans, so let’s start by driving people into your ecosystem en masse.

• Tundra - It’s really expensive to be an Aquatic, and Tundras are great at bringing cash infusions into their businesses. You need that since your plans are generally so epic in scope and span many modalities.

• Forest - Once you have money coming into your business, you need a better way to engage with your readers by creating a shared language between them and facilitating ways for them to talk to each other. This is the strength of a Forest, and embracing that evolution can broaden the appeal of your work.

• Grassland - Grasslands are all about depth, and a big, massive universe needs a ton of depth. Whether it’s world bibles, shared universes, RPGs, or any number of formats, embracing your inner Grassland will help give your world depth that will delight readers and bring them deeper into your universe.

As you can see, the evolution paths for each ecosystem can be wildly different. There’s a reason why we didn’t number these paths. There’s a lot of fluidity between them as well, which might make you evolve two paths at once.

We hope you can also see how important it is not to start rushing into these evolutions before your base ecosystem is working well for you. It’s a lot of new concepts and modalities to add to your workflow when you haven’t had sustained success yet. You will likely collapse under the weight of it if you don’t have a solid stream of income in place first.

When we say you should be stripping those things that don’t work and double down on what’s working, that doesn’t mean forever. It means until you have consistent revenue coming in and have breathing room to start looking at the biggest picture.

Until you get there, you’ll be scrambling just to survive. Evolution comes when you have that space to grow beyond what you are doing, and that comes with time.

Even once you’re ready to evolve, you shouldn’t try to incorporate more than one ecosystem a quarter into your business, and maybe even one a year. Evolution is about the long-term stability of your business, which only comes after getting short-term stability in your business.

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