Hello! If you’re here, I hope that means you’ve taken interest in one (or all!) of my courses.
If you’re new to Heart Breathings, welcome! I’m so happy you stopped by. I’d love it if you took a moment and check out my bio to learn more about me.
I currently offer three courses: HB90 Bootcamp, Your Path Forward, and Publish & Thrive.
Read on to find out more on each.
When I decided to begin self-publishing back in 2010, my main focus was writing and getting my books out to my fans. I didn’t realize at the time that I was also signing myself up to becoming an entrepreneur. It just didn’t click at the time that I was starting my own business. Once that realization really sunk in, I realized just how scary the concept was. I had no idea how to run a business! I knew I couldn’t just wing it, so I began investing time and money into taking productivity and business courses in order to have a better understanding of what it meant to be an entrepreneur.
Getting a grasp on the business side of self-publishing was one thing, and then in 2018 I started my second business, Heart Breathings, because I wanted to help other aspiring indie authors to achieve their dreams just as I had mine. Between finding the creativity to write books and brainstorming helpful video ideas (not to mention being a wife and mother, taking care of the household, and finding time to relax), there just didn’t leave much wiggle room and I found myself falling further and further behind.
I know this resonates with so many of you! Often we find ourselves with an endless to-do list that never gets done (for a few reasons). It could be that we’re unfocused and are approaching our tasks from the wrong angle as a result; perhaps there are just too many tasks on our list and our brains don’t know where to start; or maybe we’re not prioritizing the right things.
And, I’m sure many of you will agree that it can often be a combination of all of the above! One of my downfalls was that I wasn’t prioritizing things that were actually important to me. I saw how so many others were investing time into newsletter swaps, participating in all the Twitter chats, or learning the latest new social media platform, so I jumped on that bandwagon because “everyone else was doing it”.
This resulted in spending my time doing things that I thought I SHOULD be doing, not the things I NEEDED to be doing, and ultimately throwing spaghetti at the wall trying to make sense of everything. I was feeling super overwhelmed, was publishing fewer books than I had envisioned, and ignoring the more important marketing tactics that I knew would benefit me greater than what I was actually doing.
Every year in December, I would sit down and map out the entire year to come with all the lofty goals I wanted to complete (and they all appeared attainable at the time), but eventually, I realized that I was always around 30 days behind in where I should have been to achieve each goal. So, I would sit down with all my cute stationery supplies (because that ALWAYS makes everything better!) and redo my plans/goals from scratch. Eventually, once I had done this more times than I can count on one hand, I knew I needed a new plan.
That’s when I decided to try planning in 90-day increments and this new system was a game-changer! Breaking my larger goals down into smaller projects, and then into even SMALLER tasks helps me do a deep dive into the pieces of the puzzle that will actually fit together to complete the goal.
Why 90 days? Great question! 90 days is long enough to see viable results, but it’s not so long that we get way off course.
So if you have been either trying to manage or balance a full-time job with wanting to be creative, or you’ve got all these goals that you’ve been really wanting to accomplish and you just feel like you don’t have the time or you can’t get focused, then my HB90 Method can definitely help!
HB90 Bootcamp opens for enrollment just before each quarter begins (March, June, September, and December). You can read up on the course here (which includes a breakdown of what you’d be doing each day of Bootcamp), and if you’re not ready to sign up for the course, you can try out the HB90 Method by purchasing my printable planner on Etsy.
As I said previously, I began self-publishing in 2010. Beautiful Demons was my first book baby that I released and it’s been the catalyst for the Shadow Demons Saga to be my most popular series to date.
I have learned so much about self-publishing over the past 13 years and I’ve always felt called to share my knowledge with as many people as I could. I wish I had known the information in this course when I first got started. Some of what I’ve learned over the years has been very hard earned in terms of my own mistakes and things that I’ve done wrong, but I’m here to help you so that you can avoid making those same mistakes. 28 books in, I’m still learning about my craft every single day and I know that this will continue as the years go on. There will always be something to learn, a new tactic to apply, new strategies to implement.
Hence the birth of Publish & Thrive.
While I can’t promise you massive seven figure success as an author, because there are so many factors that go into that (including luck and timing), I can promise that this course will provide you with the tools and knowledge you need to create a successful career for yourself. I can also promise you that you’re not alone.
Publish & Thrive is the foundation upon which you will build your entire career. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “success leaves clues”, and that is absolutely true as well. There are best practices and there are foundational elements that work for the majority of authors. There are going to be a lot of decisions that you’ll need to make to determine your individual publishing strategy. So what you’ll find in this course is a mix of best practices, but not necessarily “this is the way you have to do it”.
This is you as an individual making your individual goals and dreams come true. And that is one of the most powerful and exciting things you could ever do with your life and I am so very honored to have the opportunity to help guide you through this. At the end of this course, you are going to have a solid roadmap to success that supports your publishing goals, as well as your mental health, and your mindset. I truly believe there’s room for all of us to find success.
Publish & Thrive opens for enrollment twice a year (in January and July) and runs for 6 weeks starting in February and August. Check out the full course description and a sneak peek at the course curriculum here.
My newest course, Your Path Forward, started in January 2024. As a person who focuses a lot on the future, I regularly think about where I want myself and my business to be in five year, ten years, etc. For the longest time, I would set the perfect yearly goals and map them out on a calendar, color coding my book releases and intentions. It was always super exciting, because I could see the potential… If I could just follow through.
I would make it about two weeks or a month into a new year before my entire strategy was off-track and suddenly felt less than ideal. At that point, I’d fall into a depression before I finally had the energy to get back up, make a new plan, and start again.
What I didn’t realize was that the problem was the plan itself. I wasn’t leaving any room for flexibility and normal everyday life. I wasn’t taking into consideration that creativity doesn’t always come on a schedule or respond to deadlines.
That’s when I started using something my business mentor, Amber McCue, and I came to call a GameBoard Strategy. A GameBoard Strategy applied to goals is the process of creating a solid, structured path to follow that remains flexible enough to account for life’s ups and downs. There is so much potential for you to tap into!
Your Path Forward is my only evergreen course: it’s always open for enrollment so you can jump in whenever you’re ready!
Pairing Your Path Forward with HB90 Bootcamp allows you to get an amazing eagle-eye view of your goals with also being hyper-focused on the immediate future. Then applying everything you learn in Publish & Thrive, you have before you a map dedicated and specific to YOU.
I’m always here for you when/if you need additional support through the courses, or just to answer general questions! Send me an email: sarra@heartbreathings.com!
