Started a business 3 years ago and I’m grossing ~79kper year (netting around 40k). Not sure how to level up. - I’m a vertically integrated self publisher. I write, illustrate, design, produce, fulfill, and market my books and card decks. I sell on Amazon Etsy and my website. As well as the occasional bulk order. I have an awesome fan base in some of my niche topics, which has made marketing pretty easy. I get most of my business through instragram posts and tictok videos (no ads, just posting content). I get dips and rises in sales throughout the year depending on if a bigger creator gives me a shoutout, if I go on a podcast, or if one of my posts gets a lot of views.

But I’m not growing big enough to feel like I can hire someone to take over my shipping, and if I put my thousands of books and decks in a fulfillment center I’ll loose a lot of profit and I’ll need to find other work to do. Drop shipping is not an option for my card decks which are half my products. So I feel a bit stuck at home with my inventory and slow growth. I’m trying to get creative with other ways to put myself out there. My ideas:

1.Hire a publicist to get me in journals or podcasts (podcasts have been huge boosts in the past but I don’t know where to find the right publicist.

2. Get a publisher. Even though my books have been really successful for such a small outreach I’ve done (2k insta followers and 1.5k tictok) publishers don’t seem to be interested in self published work.

3. Run more ads or make more content.

So my question is, does anyone have experience with getting over this hump? What would be the best course of action to get to a higher exposure? I feel like other people I know have somehow gotten the floodgates open to large audiences or had investors. Is there a cheat code?