From Spooky Season to Sleigh Your Season: A Simple, AI-Backed Blueprint for Indie Authors

It’s skeletons-on-the-lawn season, but we’re talking holiday sales—because nothing is scarier than hitting December with “vibes + a coupon code.” In this episode, I break down why an AI-assisted plan is your unfair advantage this year and what actually goes into a calm, zero-chaos strategy you can stick to. (The step-by-step how happens live in my upcoming masterclass—details below.)

You’ll learn:

• Why books are still the cozy, affordable gift (even when the economy is wonky AF)
• The 6-rung Holiday Ladder: Spark → Launch → Amplify → Ship → Digital Pivot → New-Year Reset
• How to pick one seasonal win and a giftable hero offer readers actually want
• Why a real ship-by date saves your sanity—and how to pivot to all-digital after
• The only 3 KPIs worth watching (no spreadsheet monsters)
• A quick on-air prompt to craft your 20-word “perfect gift” hook in ChatGPT

Want the HOW with me as your copilot?

• AI Holiday Sales Blueprint for Authors (w/ Launch Lab GPT) — Live on Zoom
  Friday, Oct 24 @ 1 PM CT, 60 minutes + replay • $37
  Save your seat: https://www.authorrevolution.org/offers/2bViFmDL/checkout
  
  
• Prefer all-access? Masterclass Membership — $25/mo (every class + all replays).
  Join here: https://www.authorrevolution.org/offers/GFFvDBh4/checkout

Grab cocoa, open ChatGPT, and let’s sleigh your season. 🎁✨

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Purpose
• 0:34 Why a Holiday Plan Matters Now
• 2:10 The Winging-It Cautionary Tale
• 4:39 The Six-Rung Holiday Ladder
• 7:03 The Six-Week Promo Arc
• 10:05 Ship-By Dates and Digital Pivot
• 12:06 KPIs and Simplifying to Win
• 13:20 ChatGPT as Copy Accelerator
• 15:24 On-Air Exercise: Define Your Hook
• 17:24 Myth Busting: Time, Marketing, Lists
• 20:18 Backlist, No-Ads Strategy, and Burnout
• 22:08 Masterclass Details & What You’ll Build
• 24:03 Micro Plan and Final CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Welcome to the Author Revolution Podcast. I'm Carissa Andrews, author and your host. Here to help any authors like you master mindset, harness manifestation, and embrace cutting-edge innovation to elevate your career. Let's dive in. Hey there guys, and welcome back to the Author Revolution Podcast, the place where strategy and a dash of AI will help you as an indie author work smarter. Now today we're talking about something wildly unsexy that becomes very, very sexy when it works. A clear, calm, Chat GPT-assisted holiday plan for your books. Yeah, I know, it's still spooky season. Skeletons are on the lawn, but the only thing scarier than a haunted house is getting to December with nothing but vibes and a coupon code. We're not doing that this year. We're doing calm, intentional, author-CEO energy. So here's the promise for this episode. By the end, you're gonna know why an AI-assisted plan is your unfair advantage this season and what actually goes into one so that you can stop guessing and start showing up in a way that feels good, works with your brain, and sells your books. If you want the step-by-step how, that's what my upcoming masterclass is for, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that at the end of this episode. So why now? Let's let's dig into this elephant in the room, right? The economy is wonky AF. Prices are up, attention is shredded, and everyone's inbox is a crowded party where no one knows the host. But the good news is books are still the cozy, affordable gift. They're meaningful, they're quick to wrap, and they don't require guessing someone's shirt size. But here's the catch. The authors who win are not gonna be the loudest. They're the ones who show up consistently with a clear, giftable offer and a simple plan. That's it. Not 47 moving parts, not an anxiety spreadsheet that needs its own therapist. It's a clear plan. And this is where ChatGPT comes in. If you know me, you know that ChatGPT has been instrumental in so much that I do. And the thing is here though, it's not your magic wand, but it is an incredible thinking partner and copy generator that collapses the friction between I don't know what I should do or say into wow, I actually have the words. And it helps you get unstuck super fast. So here's a quick story, perhaps a cautionary tale. A couple of years ago, an indie author, definitely not me, okay, maybe it was me, decided to wing Black Friday, right? There was a 99 cent sale that went out. It went out the wrong days or the wrong times. There was a Canva graphic that completely went wonky. I don't even know what happened there. As a graphic designer, you would think that I would understand, you know, the basics of how to do the graphic design, but things shifted and I didn't take a close enough look at it, and everything just was wild. It was it was wild, right? There was so much that didn't work in that particular campaign because I was frantic. I was doing a lot of last-minute digital pivoting, a lot of last-minute uh get things out the door and hope that someone sees my books. I was running ads and the ads weren't converting. All the stuff was just not good, right? Now I learned two things. Number one, winging it is not a personality trait. It's a tax. It makes things work in a way that just feels like complete disruption and dysregulation to your nervous system during a time frame when you're supposed to be enjoying your time, right? You're supposed to be enjoying the holidays, you're supposed to be enjoying your friends and family and not worrying about like all the different things you're trying to do to get your book seen and out the door. And number two, templates without strategy basically equates to burnout with better fonts because we just don't understand how much goes into these things, and we're not even sure what's converting, what's working, why is it working, what's going on at this particular holiday season versus what's happening in the past, right? So we're not gonna do that to future you. We're gonna create something instead that is going to help you have a calm holiday plan that actually includes what to do. So that everything that kind of comes up throughout the holidays is step-by-step plan oriented, but yet also created in a way that makes you feel good. So think of your plan like a simple holiday ladder. Yeah? It's six rungs, easy to climb. So rung one is one seasonal win. I want you to think about picking a single win that you can measure units, revenue, or list growth, just one thing, because clarity is kindness. And when you pick one thing, your brain knows exactly what to optimize and what to look for. If you followed me in the past, we've talked about the reticular activating system. Well, that's its job during this whole thing. We're looking for the evidence of that one seasonal win. So that we're not spreading ourselves out across all the different things that hypothetically you could be doing throughout a campaign and instead focusing on one win that can help us feel good about what we've accomplished. Rung two then would be to create a giftable hero offer. Not 10 offers, just one offer that readers actually want. So it could be a signed bundle, a digital box set, an audio treat, um a gift the series to a friend sort of thing with a printable card. I don't know. If you sell physical books, consider maybe a small upgrade, like a bookmark or sticker or mini print thing that goes along with it to make it feel like it's already gift ready during the holiday season. Rung three would then be creating a six-week map. You know how much I love the six-week situations when it comes to rapid releasing and getting your books written out. But here's how it kind of works in the realms of like a promotion aspect for the holiday season. You're gonna have the arc that starts with spark, launch, amplify, ship, pivot to digital, and then the new year reset. So let me explain what I mean by these six steps, right? The six different aspects of the arc. So, spark, you're gonna warm up your audience, you're gonna tease the vibe and collect their wish lists, okay? Two, you're gonna launch. You're gonna launch your main offer window, usually around the Black Friday Cyber Monday timeframe. So that's why we're gonna be looking at six weeks, right? You don't, it could be just a little bit before Black Friday, Cyber Monday, could be just a little after or right during. But just think about like your main offer window that you're gonna be really pushing out during that time frame. Amplify is gonna be all about the social proof, reader picks, uh, you know, saying stuff like perfect for fans of, that type of thing. Then you're gonna ship. So if you're doing physical copies, you've got to have a last ship date, front and center, where it says, you know, order by. Not only does it help them know that they can still get their books in time, but it's also gonna save your sanity as well, right? Once that time frame is passed, then you have to pivot to digital, okay? So once those shipping dates close, we swing into audiobooks, box sets that are digital, gift cards, pre-orders for new books, zero postage, zero panic. It's all about making sure that they know, you know, what other things can they actually access and how do they gift it to someone else or gift it to themselves. Then the new year reset. This is a gentle refresh, just saying something like start your year with X. So you're not a confetti hangover come January 1st. You're wanting it to be more of like, hey, you have money from the holidays, it's time to start something brand new, get into a cool new vibe, here you go. Now, rung four is having that real ship by date. So, in order to make everything we just said work, you have to know exactly when this is coming out. So, this is not about vibes, not when Mercury chills. It's a date when you can actually meet within the margin and make sure that they get it on time. So you want to make sure that you say it everywhere on your website, on your uh email list, uh, everything, newsletters, all the things that are going out, you want to make sure it's front and center. Now, rung five of the ladder is that digital only plan. Shipping closes, no problem. You you pivot to that digital audio sets or the digital um box sets, gift cards, pre-orders, or like even a seven-day New Year, New World uh backlist push. You're you're not done. You're just switching tracks, right? And then rung six would be three KPIs max. So these are your key performance metrics, right? You're the things that you're gonna be looking for that really help you know whether or not you are accomplishing what you want. So you're gonna pick three. So maybe it's orders like number of orders or number of books moved. It could be click-through rates, it could be revenue per send if you're if you're still doing ads, right? That's enough to know what worked without building a spreadsheet monster that's gonna eat your week. Now, that's the what. Notice I didn't say post on 14 platforms or build a 90-page funnel. We're simplifying to win, okay? So here's why ChatGPT gives you an AI edge. What derails most authors during this timeframe is it's not about strategy, it's about copy. So you know your offer, right? Finding three subject lines and 10 post angles can feel like waiting through molasses, especially when you're trying to do a lot of other things. If you have books going on, if you're in nanoRIMO, whatever is happening during this time frame, um, perhaps you're going to Author Nation, there's there's a lot that can be going on. And so when you're doing that, ChatGPT can turn all of this work into a five-minute sprint. It doesn't need to be some crazy thing that you have to figure out, you know, the copywriting angle for it. So if you need like a 20-word gift hook for your website banner, ChatGPT. Need three uh Black Friday Cyber Monday emails that don't sound like a RoboMall, Chat GPT. Need 10 social starters that don't make you yawn, chat GPT. Need alt wording for the same message across all channels, ChatGBT. And now if you happen to have access to my Launch Lab GPT from July's masterclass, it bakes in the strategy so that you can paste one kickoff, you know, like your books and dates, and it guides the build in a very clean order. So if you don't have it, no worries. That this holiday prompt pack mirrors the same flow that I'm gonna be teaching in this masterclass this month. And it's gonna mirror the same flow in regular Chat GPT. So that way we can do this free plan friendly and not worry about having to, you know, relearn something new. But if you have taken the Launch Lab Masterclass, the custom GPT that I built for you here is gonna really help you to dig a little bit deeper, especially if you've been playing around with it and understands your books and everything that you're trying to do, right? Here's what I want I want you to do right now. We're gonna do a quick on-air exercise. So take a second, pause this recording, grab a pen and a piece of paper. Okay? And when you're ready, I want you to come back. This is how we're gonna make this real for you, so that you can understand what I'm talking about. If you can pause me for 60 seconds after you hear this, I want you to jot down your answers. What is your seasonal win? What will it look like? Write it down. What is your hero offer gonna do during this time frame? Write it down. What is your ship by date? Like when is your last ship date for any physical copies of anything? Figure that one out. Okay. Now that you have that, open Chat GPT and try this. I want you to write this prompt word for word. Write one punchy sentence that makes whatever your book name is or series name is the perfect gift for fans of. And then you write out your comp author or your genre that you're kinda trying to keep it all in, right? Keep it under 20 words and end with a clear benefit. Give me five options. Chat GPT is gonna go ahead and create this whole thing for you, and then you're gonna pick your favorite line, and that's your seasonal hook, okay? Pin it on your site, your social banner, and on the top of your email. Because even that tiny action lifts clarity so that your readers know exactly what to be expecting from you this holiday season. So if you've gotten to this point and you're like, okay, uh, this gives me a little bit of anxiety. I don't know if this is the right vibe for me. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to manage the whole holiday season and not lose my mind. I have a few myths that I want to kind of walk through because I think all of us have at some point or another gone through this kind of thing with our books, with what we're trying to accomplish, right? So myth number one here is I don't have time. You don't have time not to, okay? A one-hour plan saves you 10 hours of flailing. And when you access ChatGPT, what used to take hours, sometimes days, to figure out can literally take minutes. So when you're looking at your books and getting out there and having a plan to get your readership engaged, you know, I don't have time really isn't the vibe. The vibe is how can I do this by maximizing my time and still have time for myself and my family? Now I get it. Like I want my own time too. I want to be able to chill out, I want to be able to enjoy, you know, wrapping presents and Christmas caroling and Christmas lights and visiting family. That's cool. And so that's why Chat GPT makes it so much easier for us to handle, get it out the door, and even schedule it and forget it, to be perfectly honest. Okay, now myth number two. I'm bad at marketing, so this is not gonna work for me. You might be bad at doing it alone. That's the truth, right? But with a simple framework and ChatGPT, you're just answering questions and picking favorites. That's not marketing, that's decision making. And ChatGPT is gonna help you discover and uncover the right plan from start to finish. There are so many times when I'm learned something new about the marketing spectrum for my books that even I wasn't thinking of, especially when I've asked ChatGPT for help, thinking outside the box when it comes to indie author marketing. And as some of you know, if you've been listening for a while, you know that I'm not running ads because reasons, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna join on that bad way again just because it's the holidays. So I have to look at things outside of that kind of norm and see how can I lift my own books in a way that is more organic, but yet does the job, right? There's a lot of things that we say that we're bad at when and honestly, when we implement the tools and the strategies and the tips and tricks from ChatGBT, that's just an excuse because chat can help you do just about anything. Myth number three is that my list is small, so it won't matter. Look, I get that too. Small lists respond beautifully, though, to clear offers from a human that they already like. So a plan like this multiplies your consistency and consistency compounds. So when you have the plan mapped out, when you know what you're supposed to be talking about, how you're gonna make it clear, how you can communicate to your readers in whatever platform you are sharing this information with, not only is it gonna be easy for them to say yes, but it's also going to be easy for you to just go ahead and implement the strategies that need to be done. And now, myth number four is I don't ship paperbacks. Great, that's perfectly fine. Digital only can be your whole strategy. So audio bundles, those digital box sets, gift cards, pre-orders, all that stuff is perfect because there's no postage and no panic. You can even create simple digital assets, you know, to really kind of amp it up that your readers can get. It can be part of your um automation onboarding strategy where they get some other bonuses for doing it during the holiday season. Super fun stuff that you can do that they don't get at any other time of the year. Okay, so in my masterclass coming up on Friday, the 24th of October, it's called AI Holiday Sales Blueprint for Authors with Launch Lab GPT. We're gonna be picking that one seasonal win that you can actually measure. We're gonna lock in that giftable hero offer that we were talking about earlier so that you know your readers are gonna want it. It's gonna be awesome. We'll map your six-week ladder with daily themes that you can actually stick to. We will set a real ship by date and your digital pivot. Or if you're just gonna be digital, that's perfectly fine too. We'll decide on that. And then with ChatGPT, we'll generate paste ready words, your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, email, trio, and a bank of social starters to get you going. You're gonna have two tracks to be able to choose from. So if you have Launch Lab GPT, we'll be running the holiday kickoff inside it for speed and for clarity because the Launch Lab GPT understands the strategy that I've built around launching in general. And so it's gonna understand like how to do this for us. And if not, then the holiday prompt pack that is gonna be going along with it. It's PDF that has all this stuff, um, it's gonna mirror the exact workflow in regular Chat GPT. What you're gonna be doing is leaving with clarity, dates, and copy that you can start to wrap your head around, really get your mindset on board. Because remember, this isn't about just ideas, it's about assets. And when you're committed to something, when you've created the strategy and the plan and you're committed to it, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to actually create the thing that you want and take action. And when you look at it from a broader perspective, right? Even if your holiday plan doesn't go like gangbusters, like the way that most of us really want, doing something is still better than doing nothing because it, number one, it keeps you in top of mind to your readers. So maybe they won't get anything during the holiday season, but they do once they have money after they get their presence. Like there's all sorts of ways that your touch points are going to impact your readers and bring you back to top of mind. So it's it's about creating the buzz, creating the awareness, and allowing your readers to make decisions when they're ready. So here's a couple of questions that I want to answer before we end this podcast episode because I think it's going to be helpful for those who are new to Chat GPT and those who are maybe struggling with the idea of promoing your backlist or your books during the holiday season because maybe it hasn't worked out in the past, or maybe you haven't done anything in the past and you're not sure where to start. So the first uh frequently asked question that I get is like, what if I'm brand new to ChatGPT? That's totally perfect. I teach prompts like training wheels. Then we take them off. We start to learn how to ask questions of ChatGPT in a way where it understands us and we're able to communicate, you know, exactly what we're looking for. And so don't worry about that. I will help you out in every way possible. Another question I get is I'm neurodivergent and I burn out easily. So same. We work in short, batchable chunks. That's why ChatGPT is so helpful. We're here to create those daily themes, reduce decision fatigue, and know exactly what we have to do in order to maintain the clarity that our readers need. So if burning out is something that you're concerned about, that's the whole reason why we're gonna create this to be as easy for us as possible. And we can even build that into the strategy as we build on our um prompts and the things that we're gonna be doing in the masterclass so that it knows how to develop and create the plan so that we don't burn out. Okay. What if I can't attend live? That's another question I get a lot. The replays are always included. So you can watch with Coco and pause as needed, go back and re-watch something if it didn't make sense. It's all gonna be available and as well as the PDF with all of the prompt information as well, will always be included. And if you're a part of my Author Revolution masterclass membership, that always goes up in the same place as well. So just keep in mind that my single masterclasses have to be hosted on YouTube because Kajabi, my course place, it doesn't allow me to do single uh masterclasses right there. So that always gets hosted over on YouTube and you get your PDF through email where over at the masterclass membership, you get everything inside of Kajabi. It's all hosted in one spot and it's easy to find. Okay, so is this just for new releases? Nope. Backlists love the holidays. So think gift the series bundles or audio bundles or digital boxes. Like think about ways that you can gift it or make it more special. And it's perfect because you've done the hard work, you've done the heavy lifting of creating the series. You're gonna know the vibe and you're gonna be able to, you know, bundle it up in a way that really hits home and makes it more exciting. Will I need to pay for ads? Like I already mentioned, no. We're gonna be focusing on your list and organic channels. If you do ads, that's fine. This plan gives them something solid to point at. And you can always use ChatGPT or the Launch Lab GPT to be able to help you develop your ad strategy as well. So here's that micro plan for today. I want you to do these three things if you haven't paused the episode and done them already. I want you to pick that first win, right? Pick your one win, whether it's units sold, books sold, um, sales sold, whatever, uh revenue growth, or list growth. Number two, I want you to pick your offer, and then number three, I want you to decide your ship by date so that we can meet within the margin. And that's it. You're already ahead of 90% of authors who will try to vibe their way through November. Now, if you want the step-by-step how, with me as your co-pilot and of course ChatGPT as your co-pilot, come to the live masterclass. So AI holiday sales blueprint for authors is gonna be happening on Friday, October 24th at 1 p.m. Central Time on Zoom. It is$37. Replay is included, and all you have to do is head over to authorevolution.org. It's gonna be right there on the homepage. Check it out. If you prefer all access to everything, grab the masterclass membership for just$25 a month. It's the only container where every masterclass, like I said, lives in one cozy portal. You can find that by heading over to authorevolution.org forward slash store, and you can, you know, access everything that I'm doing right there. So let's make this the season you sell with ease, not adrenaline. Books are still, even in this economy, the most magical, affordable gift. With a simple plan and a little help from ChatGPT, you can show up like the pro you are, with a clear offer, steady presence, cozy energy, and zero chaos. I'll bring the framework, you bring the cocoa. Now go forth and start your author revolution.