43 | Do Low Book Sales Mean You're Less Anointed

Why do we feel confident and "anointed" when book sales soar, but question our calling when they crash? If you've ever let your royalty report determine your confidence as a Kingdom writer, I have too—and you're not broken. You're human.

But here's the truth: Your anointing validated you before you ever sold a single book. The confidence you're searching for in those sales numbers? You already carry it in the calling God placed on your life.

In this episode, we're diving deep into why we trade our anointing for the false confidence of earnings—and how to break free. We'll unpack:

• Why we confuse financial abundance with God's approval (and what Scripture really says about it)
• The difference between operating in anointing versus striving for validation
• How to step into abundance without making money your idol
• Four powerful shifts to anchor your confidence in your calling, not your cash flow
• What it looks like to keep writing boldly when bills are due and sales are down
• Practical boundaries for when anointing and abundance do align

This isn't about choosing between spiritual calling and financial success—it's about learning to steward both without letting either become your master. It's about discovering that your anointing IS your abundance, and that's the most liberating truth you'll ever embrace as a Kingdom writer.

So if you're tired of riding the emotional rollercoaster of sales-based confidence, grab your journal, settle in, and let's talk about how to root your identity where it belongs—in your irrevocable, unshakeable, dashboard-independent anointing.

👉 Listen now to uncover the secret to becoming an anointed scribe!

Transcript

I recently went through some of my earlier journal entries and discovered something that horrified me.

My entire mood shifted with my book sales.

When sales were good, I felt confident, validated, anointed. When sales slumped, so did my sense of calling.

Have you ever noticed how different your day feels when your royalties look good?

You open that dashboard, see those numbers climbing, and instantly your confidence soars.

Finally proof that you are cut out for this after all.

Finally, you can actually call yourself an author.

So you start dreaming again. You think about the next book idea with excitement instead of dread.

You text your writing friend with enthusiasm.

You might even treat yourself to that fancy keyboard because, hey, you're walking in your calling, right?

But then the next month, those numbers drop. And just like that, the anointing you felt so sure of a week ago suddenly feels questionable.

The calling that seemed crystal clear feels fuzzy. Suddenly the doubts creep in. What if last month's sales were just a fluke?

What if I'm not really anointed for this? What if these low sales are God's way of telling me to stop?

Here's what breaks my heart, friend.

We're letting a sales report speak louder than the Holy Spirit.

We are trading the confidence of our anointing for the false security of earnings. And friend,

if you felt that whiplash between I'm anointed when sales are up and maybe I'm not called when they're down,

let me tell you, I've been there. But can I tell you something?

Your anointing came before your first sale and it will remain long after your last one.

The confidence you are searching for in those numbers, you already carry it in the calling he placed on your life.

Today we're going to unpack something tender but transformative.

And that is why we seek validation in royalties when we've already been anointed for this work.

Why we confuse financial abundance with God's approval and more importantly, how we can step into the abundance God has for us without making money our idol,

keeping our confidence anchored in our anointing and not our earnings.

This is episode 43 

I'm Urcelia Teixeira ex real estate agent turned award winning Christian fiction author When I wrote my first novel on a bucket list whim,

I had no idea it would spark a spiritual journey that would redefine my calling.

But you know what, friend? Self publishing wasn't easy. I got caught. Caught in the hustle, chasing rankings and sales while desperately trying to stay rooted in Christ.

Now, by God's grace, I'm building my author business his way. And now he's called me to help you do the same.

Welcome to the Anointed Scribe podcast, where faith meets business for Christian writers. Let's write, publish, and grow our author business God's way. Are you ready? Well, then, let's get started.


Hey, it's your author friend, Urcelia. And I'm so glad you pressed play today,

because today's conversation is about something I was guilty of doing for a long time and it just wasn't a healthy place to be in, both mentally and spiritually.

Now, I want you to know up front, this is not going to be a how to increase your book sales episode.

And it's not going to be a money is evil, poverty is holy message either. Nope, this is going to be a heart to heart about something we very rarely talk about openly.

That complicated dance between wanting to prosper in our calling and not letting prosperity become our God or our idol.

Maybe you've wrestled with this tension. On one hand, you know God has anointed you to write.

You felt his presence when the words flow. You've seen him use your work to touch lives.

But on the other hand, when the royalties are low,

that anointing suddenly feels less real, less valid.

Like maybe you've imagined the whole thing, right?

Or maybe you're in a different place. Maybe sales have been good, really good even, and now you are terrified of losing it. Or worse, you want more.

You find yourself writing not from that pure place of anointing, but from a desperate need to maintain the income.

The abundance that should be a blessing has become a chain.

I've been in both places, so I'm not here to preach at you.

I am here, though, to walk alongside you as we both learn what it means to operate in our anointing while stewarding abundance without letting either define us.

So let's start with an uncomfortable truth. Somewhere along the way, we've begun to measure our anointing by our earnings. Yes, it's true.

It's subtle how it happens, but it does happen. We don't wake up one day and decide,

I'm going to let money validate my calling. No, it's more like this.

We publish our first book full of faith, and anointing sales trickle in slowly. We tell ourselves, it's okay, we're writing for the kingdom, not for cash, right?

But then we see another Christian author celebrating their best seller status or posting their dashboard, and a tiny voice whispers, they must be more anointed than you. Look at how God is blessing them.

So we start checking our dashboard more Often we begin equating good sales days with God's approval.

We interpret every spike in royalties as confirmation of our calling. And worse,

we interpret every dip as potential evidence that maybe we are not anointed as we thought.

Here's what's happening.

We're unconsciously trading our God given confidence for marketplace validation.

We are letting Amazon's algorithm speak louder than the Almighty.

But friend, can we talk about how dangerous this is for Kingdom writers? Specifically,

when we let sales validate our anointing,

we're essentially saying that the world system gets to determine Kingdom value.

We are saying that readers who may or may not be led by the Spirit get to vote on whether God really called us.

We are giving a sales platform the power to confirm or deny what the Holy Spirit already settled in our hearts.

And here's what really concerns me.

When we operate from sales based confidence rather than anointing based confidence,

it actually blocks the very flow of anointing. We need to write Kingdom content.

Think about it. When you're desperately checking sales, anxiously comparing yourself to other authors,

writing from a place of financial fear rather than spiritual overflow,

are you really in a position to hear what the Spirit wants to say through your words?

Can anxiety and anointing coexist in the same creative space?

I remember a season when my sales were at an all time high. You'd think I'd be writing from this place of bold confidence, right?

But instead I found myself paralyzed. Every word I wrote was filtered through will this sell? Rather than is this what God wants to say?

I had traded my anointing for earnings and suddenly the well ran dry.

The false confidence that comes from good sales,

it shifts and changes at the drop of a hat. Because publishing is ebb and flow, right? If you've been in this game for a while, you'll know that algorithm changes, reader preferences, change market saturation.

None of these things are stable enough to build your identity on.

But your anointing? That's unchangeable, irrevocable.

Romans 11:29 says, the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

He doesn't check your sales rank before deciding if you are still called to write.

Now here's where it gets even more complex. Because I'm not here to tell you that money doesn't matter or that God wants you to struggle financially.

In fact,

3 John 1:2 says, Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers.

God actually desires abundance for his children.

He's not against you earning well from your writing. He's not glorified by your financial struggle.

So we have this paradox.

God wants us to prosper, but prosperity can become a snare.

He desires abundance for us, but abundance can become an idol.

How do we navigate this?

First, we need to understand the difference between poverty mindset and kingdom abundance.

Poverty mindset says money is evil. Truly spiritual authors don't care about sales, and struggling financially means I'm humble,

but that's not biblical, friend.

That's false humility that can actually prevent us from stewarding our gifts with excellence.

Kingdom abundance says I can receive financial blessing without it becoming my source.

I can steward prosperity without worshipping it.

I can desire to earn wealth from my writing while keeping my identity rooted in my anointing,

not my income.

The key is abundance is meant to flow through us, not become our anchor.

When God blesses us financially through our writing,

it's not primarily for our validation.

It's for kingdom multiplication.

It's provision,

not proof of calling.

But here's what happens.

We receive a taste of financial success and suddenly we are gripping it with white knuckles, terrified to lose it.

We start writing to maintain income or build more rather than release anointing. We become slaves to sustaining abundance rather than stewards of it.

Or we swing the other way. We're so afraid of making money an idol that we reject financial blessing altogether.

We self sabotage our book marketing,

we price our books too low. We feel guilty for wanting to earn from our anointing.

And ironically, this poverty mindset becomes its own form of idolatry.

We are still letting money, or the lack of it, define us.

So let's look at what Scripture actually says about anointing versus achievement.

David is the perfect example.

In 1 Samuel 16, he's anointed as king while he's still a shepherd boy. No throne, no crown,

no royal bank account.

Just oil dripping down his head and promises that wouldn't manifest for years.

Did David's anointing become less real during those years in the wilderness running from Saul?

Did it diminish when he was hiding in caves far from any palace?

No.

The anointing remained even when the outward evidence was completely absent.

Or consider Jesus sending out the disciples in Luke 10:4 when he said,

carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals.

He sent them out to do kingdom work with zero financial security.

Why?

Because their authority and anointing weren't dependent on on their bank accounts.

But notice they lacked nothing.

The anointing provided what money couldn't buy.

Authority over demons, healing power, and houses opening to receive them.

The anointing preceded and exceeded any financial provision.

And then there's Paul. This brilliant anointed apostle made tents to fund his ministry. Did you know that?

Think about that. The man who wrote most of the New Testament was doing manual labor to pay his bills.

Did his tent sales determine his anointing level?

Did slow business months mean God had removed his calling?

Actually,

Paul saw his tent making as both provision and protection for his anointing.

In 1 Corinthians 9 he explains that he worked so that no one could say he preached for money.

He protected the purity of his anointing by not letting it become tangled with financial motivation.

Here's what these examples show.

Anointing operates independently of financial metrics. Your kingdom authority as a writer isn't determined by your royalty statements.

The power of your words to transform lives isn't measured by your sales rank.

So can we talk about something we don't often acknowledge? There's actual spiritual warfare happening around this issue.

The enemy knows that if he can get you to measure your anointing by your earnings, he can manipulate your confidence with market fluctuations. He can use a bad side sales month to silence a voice God wants to speak through.

He can use financial fear to water down the bold message God gave you to write.

Think about how strategic this is from the enemy's perspective. He doesn't have to stop you from writing altogether.

He just has to get you to trade anointing based confidence for sales based confidence.

Once you make that trade,

you're writing from hustle instead of holy flow.

You're creating from striving instead of surrender.

I've seen this happen in my own life.

I started out with pure, powerful messages that God had laid on my heart.

But gradually I found myself diluting my content to be more marketable.

I'd catch myself sanding down the sharp edges of truth to appeal to broader audiences.

Instead of writing the eternal truths he gave me, I was chasing the trending topics.

And slowly I could feel it. The anointing that once saturated my words began to lift.

Not because God removed it, but because I stopped operating from it. I began trusting in my marketing strategy more than the Holy Spirit's strategy.

I started writing to meet financial goals rather than kingdom assignments.

It was subtle, but the shift was real.

And it scared me when I finally recognized what I'd been doing.

And you know, the worst part was that I wasn't even aware I had shifted because I wasn't paying attention to the signs I was paying attention to my sails because that was what I was programmed to focus on.

So how do you know if you're writing from anointing or from striving?

Well, let's look at some signs.

When you're writing from anointing,

you feel peace even when sales are low.

Your worth feels secure regardless of reviews you write. What God gives you, even if it's not trendy,

there's a flow and grace to your writing process.

You can celebrate other authors success without comparison.

Your confidence comes from knowing he called you and you feel energized after writing it, not depleted.

In contrast,

here's what striving looks like.

Your mood depends on your dashboard.

You constantly compare your numbers to others.

Consciously or subconsciously,

you water down your message to be more sellable.

Writing feels forced and anxious.

You feel threatened by other authors success like you feel like you're in competition with them.

Your confidence requires constant external validation.

You feel exhausted and empty after writing.

So friend,

here's a practical test for you before you sit down to write tomorrow. Pay attention to what you check first.

Do you go straight to God's presence or straight to your sales dashboard?

Do you see any of these signs I've just mentioned?

What you run to first reveals what you are really trusting in.

Now.

What happens when God does bring financial abundance through your writing?

How do you steward success without it corrupting your anointing?

First,

recognize that financial abundance is a test,

not just a blessing.

It reveals what's really in our hearts.

Will you still prioritize anointing when you no longer need to?

Will you still write from surrender when you could coast on strategy?

Here's some practical boundaries to maintain when success comes.

Keep your morning routine sacred. Don't let checking best seller rankings replace your time with God, even when those rankings are good.

2. Tithe on your increase.

Not just financially, though. Yes, that is what tithing means.

But tithe your time and platform back to God.

Use your success to amplify other kingdom voices.

3. Stay accountable.

Have people in your life who can call you out if money starts becoming your master. Give them permission to ask hard questions about your motivations.

4.

Remember your wilderness. Keep a journal from your lean seasons visible.

Remember what sustained you when money didn't.

Don't forget the lessons learned when anointing was all you had.

Write one thing yearly that won't sell.

Seriously. Write something you know won't become commercially successful, but that God is asking for it keeps your anointing pure and your priorities straight.

Now I can already sense Some of you are getting uncomfortable.

Maybe you're wondering, is she saying if I just have enough faith,

if I just operate in my anointing properly, then financial abundance will come?

Is this just another version of prosperity gospel wrapped in different words?

No.

That's such an important question though. But I want to address it head on. Because the last thing I want is for you to walk away thinking that anointing equals automatic financial success.

Or worse,

that financial struggle means you are doing something wrong spiritually.

So let's talk about the elephant in the room.

Let me be clear about what I am not saying.

This isn't about name it and claim it. This isn't about demanding wealth from God or believing that anointing or automatically equals best seller status.

Jeremiah was incredibly anointed and incredibly unpopular.

His book sales would have been abysmal.

The abundance mindset I'm talking about isn't about excess.

It's about sufficiency. It's about believing God will provide what you need to fulfill your calling, whether that's through book sales, a day job, or or unexpected provision.

Your anointing doesn't guarantee financial success, but it does guarantee that your words will accomplish what God sent them to do.

And honestly,

that's worth more than any royalty cheque.

Now,

I know some of you are thinking, that's beautiful, Urcelia, but my electricity is about to shut off and my fridge is empty.

I hear you. I've been there.

I've sat in my car looking at my negative bank balance outside the grocery store, wondering if all this talk about anointing was just spiritual bypassing of real financial crisis.

There have been many months when I had to choose between keeping my ads going and getting a bookbub feature deal or buying groceries. And I remember thinking,

huh, some anointing. I can't even buy ads to keep my business running.

But here's what I learned in that valley.

Financial struggle does not diminish your anointing.

Poverty doesn't mean you are less called,

and desperate circumstances don't negate the oil on your head.

Actually, it's often in those crushing financial moments that our anointing gets refined.

When we have nothing to lean on but God's calling, we discover that the anointing itself is its own reward.

We learn to write from raw dependence rather than comfortable independence. And sometimes this is hard to hear, but true God allows financial pressure to purify our motives,

to strip away any writing for ego,

platform or security,

until all that's left is writing from pure anointing. It's painful, it's refining,

but it produces writing that carries authentic kingdom authority.

So let me give you some practical tools for those days when you are tempted to trade your anointing for false confidence.

Number one.

Create an anointing anchor. Document,

journal something.

Write down the moments when you knew God called you to write the divine confirmations,

the times his presence saturated your writing sessions,

the prophetic words spoken over you.

Read this before you check any sales reports.

The second thing, develop a pre writing declaration.

Before you open your laptop, declare out loud, I am anointed to write.

My validation comes from heaven.

I release kingdom authority through my words today,

regardless of how many copies sell.

Number three. Practice dashboard fasting. Choose one day a week where you don't check any sales metrics. In fact, I do the opposite. I try only check once a week and use that day to remind yourself or the days that you don't check that your worth and calling exist completely independent of those numbers.

Number four. Find your remnant.

Connect with other Christian authors who understand this tension, who can remind you of your anointing when your sales are low and keep you humble when they are high.

We need people who speak to our calling,

not just our career.

5. Write letters to your future self.

When you're operating in strong anointing, write letters to the you who will face the next low sales season.

Remind yourself of what's true when feelings lie.

Here's what God's been showing me lately, friend.

This whole journey isn't really about learning to balance anointing and abundance. It's about discovering that our anointing is our abundance.

The oil on your head is worth more than any advance or any royalty check.

The authority in your words carries more weight than bestseller status.

The lives transformed by your obedience matter more than any metric we can measure.

When we really grasp this,

something shifts. Something changes.

We stop white knuckling our writing career trying to force financial breakthrough.

We stop comparing our behind the scenes with everyone else's highlights. We stop letting fear of financial failure silence what God wants to say through us.

Instead,

we write from overflow. We create from confidence. Not the shaky confidence of good sales, but the unshakable confidence of kingdom calling.

We release our anointing freely, trusting God to handle the rest.

So friend, the next time you open your sales dashboard and your stomach drops because the numbers aren't what you hoped, I want you to pause,

breathe and remind yourself,

my anointing remains intact.

My calling hasn't changed.

His presence is still more than enough.

His grace is sufficient for me.

And the next time sales soar and that dopamine hit makes you feel invincible,

I want you to pause again.

Remember that this high is temporary,

but your anointing is eternal.

Receive the abundance with gratitude, but don't let it become your God.

Your anointing came before your first sale and will remain after your last one.

The confidence you are searching for in those numbers,

you already carry it in the calling he placed on your life.

You're not writing for royalties. You're writing from revelation.

You're not creating for cash.

You're creating from calling. And that calling, that precious, irreplaceable anointing, is the only validation you've ever needed.

And if this conversation stirred something deep in you, friend,

if you are craving not just encouragement, but real practical strategies for building your author business from anointing rather than anxiety,

make sure you are subscribed. Because I'm creating something really unique and special that I wish was available when I was stuck and had nowhere to turn.

Now, I don't want to say too much about it yet,

except that if you are ready to break free from the feast or famine mindset and build something sustainable not just financially but spiritually, where your writing life flows from anointing and wisdom,

not panic and comparison,

then make sure you tune in every week.

For now though, feel free to share this episode and podcast with anyone you think might benefit and let this truth settle deep in your bones.

Your anointing is your abundance,

your calling is your confidence, and the oil on your head is worth more than all the royalties in the world.

Friend, Before I let you go, I want you to use the send me a message link in the show notes and let me know where you need God to show up for you today so I can pray for you.

It's 100% anonymous. I can't see your name or your email or your phone number. I can't even reply to you. But I can read your request and I can pray for you.

So I encourage you to use this feature to send me a private message to to let me know what you are struggling with right now so we can come together and take this to the Lord in prayer.

And if you found today's episode helpful, please consider subscribing and leaving a review.

You know firsthand the impact this has on discovery, so please help me get this show into more listeners ears. I have a mission and I cannot do it without you.

Oh and if you want more tips outside of the show,

sign up to my monthly 5 minute manna emails. The link is in the show notes. Okay, so that's it for today's show.

Thank you for listening. And remember, for such a time as this,

you have been called to thrive as God's anointed scribe.