The #1 Blind Spot Holding Back Your Author Career in 2025

You pour your heart into every book. You’ve taken courses, joined promo groups, tested ads, posted endlessly on social media, yet your royalties barely move. Meanwhile, you watch other authors scale to five and six figures and think, “What are they doing that I’m not?”

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. After coaching over 500 authors to national bestseller lists and helping hundreds more cross the six- and seven-figure mark, author coach Rebecca Hamilton has identified one common thread behind almost every stalled author career:

You don’t know what you don’t know.

It’s not laziness, or lack of talent. It’s that most authors simply don’t realize which questions they should be asking to unlock the next level of growth.

We call this the Author Blind Spot, and it’s the single biggest barrier keeping talented writers from becoming thriving business owners. If you’ve ever felt like:

• You’re doing “everything right” but sales still don’t stick

• You’re drowning in conflicting advice from YouTube, TikTok or blogs.

• You can’t tell what’s broken in your funnel or ads

• Or you’re just plain tired of guessing what might finally work…

This post will show you exactly where that blind spot hides, and how to eliminate it for good.

The Hidden Problem Behind Every Author Plateau

if you don’t know what the problem is, how would you even know what to Google right? You could ask a thousand questions, read a hundred blogs, and still miss the one thing that actually matters for your author business.

Rebecca shares a personal example:

“Years ago, when I was buying a horse, I researched everything, care, breeds, costs, training, equipment. I still missed one painfully obvious step seasoned buyers knew by heart. It wasn’t laziness; it was that I didn’t even know that question existed.”

Authors repeat this mistake constantly in their careers. They research endlessly, blurbs, covers, ads, but miss the foundational question that would make all those pieces finally click.

The Three Layers of Author Growth (and Where Most Get Stuck)

Knowing What You Don’t Know

You can’t learn what you don’t realize you’re missing. That’s why having mentors and peers who’ve already succeeded matters, they reveal what’s invisible from your current perspective.

If you ever find yourself second-guessing what to learn next, connect with other serious authors inside our free Six Figure Author Coach Community on Facebook. It’s where we share bite-sized trainings and help authors identify blind spots faster, before they turn into roadblocks.

Finding the Right Answers

Even after you identify what to learn, you face a flood of conflicting advice. Google and social feeds are full of partial truths, tiny pieces from a hundred different puzzles.

That’s why we publish ongoing guidance on the Six Figure Author Coach Blog: free, detailed breakdowns that show how craft, marketing, and reader psychology actually work together. It’s real education you can apply today, no guessing required.

Correct Implementation

Even when you have the right plan, success depends on execution. One small misstep, a misplaced keyword, wrong ad bid, or unclear call-to-action, can tank conversions.

Inside our mentorships, authors get personalized feedback until every step works in practice, not just theory. Because success doesn’t come from knowing; it comes from executing correctly.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect in Publishing

This isn’t about ego; it’s about perception. We all tend to overestimate our understanding until we see how deep a topic really goes.

In publishing, that looks like:

• Running ads without understanding how Amazon’s algorithm truly works

• Assuming a “great book” automatically sells itself

• Copying tactics that worked in another genre or heat level

Once you start to see how storytelling, positioning, and reader psychology connect, the entire picture changes.

Rebecca often explains this using one of the simplest examples in writing craft, the famous show vs. tell.
Most authors believe they already understand the difference, but when they see how the same scene can be rewritten to trigger a reader’s emotions instead of merely describing them, the light bulb goes off.
That single shift changes how readers feel your story, and it’s the same kind of shift we aim for in marketing and sales strategy.

How to Eliminate the Blind Spot

The fastest way to overcome “not knowing what you don’t know” is to work with someone who already made the mistakes for you. That’s exactly what the Six Figure Author Coach Program was built for.

Here’s how it’s structured:
1. Guaranteed Learning: You’ll learn something you can’t find online, or double your money back.
2. Guaranteed Results: You’ll get direct feedback to ensure your implementation is correct before scaling.
3. System Integration: We connect every step to your business goals, so your ads, covers, blurbs, and pricing actually work together instead of against each other.

And when you’re ready to go beyond six figures, you can graduate into the Seven Figure Author Career program, where Rebecca and team teach advanced scaling systems like Reader Cloning, Organic Sales Automation, and the full 3xP methodology that’s helped hundreds of authors hit national lists.

Client snapshot:
“My experience with 3XP so far (with where I am in the program now) has been nothing short of shocking. Last year September, I launched my very first book after a 3 year haitus from 2020 using 3XP methods and that marked my first 4 figure year in my entire 6 years of publishing.

I went from making $6/month to $500 in month, and the book I launched using the 3xp method has surpassed my total earning in 6 years in under 2 months. I’m still very early in the programs and seeing such progress. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see where I get at the end."

See even more wins and case studies: Real Author Results

The Takeaway for Every Author

Even if you never work with us, remember this:
1. Don’t assume you already know everything.
2. Don’t assume what you’re doing is being done correctly.
3. And don’t take advice from anyone who can’t show consistent, repeatable results.

Find someone who has the outcomes you want, and who’s committed to helping you reach them. 

My horse-buying mistake cost me time and money. Your writing career is worth far more than that.  Recognize what you don’t know, then learn from someone who does.