Why Your Author Business Is One Algorithm Change Away From Disappearing
And the one thing that’s kept mine going for 30 years
My field guide has sold over 65,000 copies. Every live event I’ve run since 2010 has sold out. The online courses I promote sell thousands of copies. The webinars fill up in days.
People ask how. The honest answer isn’t glamorous.
It’s an email newsletter. Something I own. Something nobody can take away from me overnight.
What’s covered
- Why ‘I’m too busy to send a newsletter’ is the most expensive sentence in business
- What happened when I built my author business on platforms I didn’t own
- The difference between a tactic and a strategy, and why most people only have the former
- Why email is plumbing, not marketing – and what that means for you
- How relationships, not reach, are what actually keep an author business alive
- What I’ll be sharing in the months ahead, for free
What makes this different
Most advice about growing an audience focuses on the platform of the moment. Get more followers. Beat the algorithm. Go viral.
That advice has an expiry date. Yahoo was once the way people found things online. Myspace was where everyone’s friends were. Both vanished from relevance within a few years – and so did the businesses that depended on them.
I’ve had the carpet pulled out from under me twice in thirty years of running an author business, both times because I was relying on a platform I didn’t control.
I learned the hard way that free platforms aren’t free. They’re rented space, and the landlord can change the terms whenever they like.
What I’ll be sharing comes from what’s actually worked for me – building an audience on something I own, that stays with me regardless of what AI, Google or Facebook or whoever comes next decides to do.
Who this is for
This IS for you if:
- You sell books, run workshops or courses and want them to fill up reliably
- You’ve ever felt nervous about how dependent your author business is on Google or social media
- You want to build something that lasts longer than the next algorithm update
- You’re willing to put in the work of nurturing relationships, not just broadcasting offers
This is NOT for you if:
- You’re looking for a quick hack or a viral shortcut
- You only want to talk to your audience when you have something to sell
What you’ll get
- Practical, tested advice on building an author business and audience you actually own
- Real stories from 30 years of running an indie author business – including what went wrong
- No hype, no manipulative tactics – just what’s worked, and what hasn’t
- Free, for as long as it’s useful to you
“Robin’s 1-2-1 mentoring and coaching helped me successfully launch my online storytelling course, generating more than £13,000 from a tiny email list of 1180 subscribers! Amazing. I am so grateful… he knows his stuff.” – Chris Holland / storytellingforoutdoorlearning.com
Subscribe
If you’d rather not find out the hard way what happens when a platform pulls the rug out from under you, this is where to start.
Free
About Robin
Robin Harford is the founder of Eatweeds, the UK’s leading wild food and foraging education platform. His field guide, Edible and Medicinal Wild Plants of Britain and Ireland, has sold over 65,000 copies, and his in-person foraging courses in Devon have been fully booked since 2010.
He’s spent over two decades building an audience through direct relationships rather than borrowed platforms – and has learned, more than once, what happens when you don’t.