Case Study:#1 Bestselling Author Stephanie EwingBreast Cancer Survivor & Author of "The Shower Habit"
How Stephanie Ewing turned her breast cancer recovery into The Shower Habit, a book that's still a #1-2 bestseller years later, and grew it into a full habit-book series.
By Gundi Gabrielle
10 min read
This Stephanie Ewing case study is about one of my own students, and her book is proof that a bestseller doesn't have to be a one-month wonder. Years after we first worked on it together in my Facebook group, The Shower Habit is still ranking #1-2 in multiple Amazon categories.
Stephanie is the author of The Shower Habit and the Optimize Your Life habit series it started, along with a separate, deeply personal series about her own breast cancer journey. She came to my course as a working mom of two, going through breast cancer treatment, and turned what she learned about getting through it into a book that's helped thousands of readers.
I had her on my Author Success Stories series to find out how she did it. The full interview is right here, and below it I've pulled out what I think any nonfiction author can copy.
One note before we start: this interview comes from Bestseller Empire, the pre-AI version of my course. Golden Bestseller Empire is its next chapter. The methods are exactly the same, and they're timeless: finding the gap, researching it properly, building a launch team and giving readers a reason to join your list. What's new is that you now have AI-assisted tools and 31+ one-click generators that make every one of those steps even easier.
Who is Stephanie Ewing, and why is her story worth studying?
Stephanie Ewing is the author of The Shower Habit: 10 Steps to Increase Energy, Boost Confidence, and Achieve Your Goals Without Waking Up Earlier, the first book in her Optimize Your Life series. She followed it with The Sleep Habit, The Success Habit, Procrastination Hacks to Create Your Best Life One Micro Burst at a Time, and most recently The Fasting Habit.
Separately, she also wrote When Boobs Attack: A Girlfriend's Guide to Breast Cancer, drawn directly from her own diagnosis and recovery.
You can see her full catalog on her Amazon author page.
Here's the part I love most: Stephanie's bestseller is still a bestseller. Most books get a launch bump and fade. Hers has held a top spot in its categories for years.
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How did Stephanie learn to do all this?
She learned it from me. Stephanie had always wanted to become an author but had no idea what steps to take. She searched Amazon for "how to write a book," found my book How to Write a Bestseller in 30 Days, and followed it step by step. She joined my Facebook group, went through the process with me directly, and published The Shower Habit as a bestseller.
A reader left this review, which Stephanie shared on her own Facebook page:
"This is my third habit book. I finished The Shower Habit and the Sleep Habit. I was telling my therapist all about them and she's buying them to read so that she can recommend them to her clients."
I also featured a story from one of Stephanie's readers in my own book, Share You're Awesome: someone in deep depression, unable to function, who started reading her book and found the steps they needed to move forward and get their life back.
What happened to Stephanie right before she wrote this book?
Right before her diagnosis, Stephanie turned 40 and decided to get in shape and run a half marathon. She did, felt great, and started training for a second one. Then she had her first mammogram, and it was breast cancer, aggressive enough to require chemotherapy. She was bald, had no immune system, and as she put it, had "two good eyelashes left."
She was also raising two children and working full-time through all of it.
The Shower Habit grew directly out of that period. While she was rebuilding her energy and her confidence, she started jotting down the small, simple things that actually worked for her, a short routine she could do before leaving the bathroom each morning. Reading my own book is what made her realize other people going through a dark time might need exactly that: not a dramatic overhaul, just a gentle, doable nudge.
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Why does a book born from real experience work better?
Stephanie didn't research shower routines online and assemble a book from other people's tips. She lived through losing her strength and having to rebuild her life, and the habit came out of that, organically, before it ever became a book title.
In her own words, she wanted the book to feel like "a gentle nudge and not a kick in the butt," a few simple steps, no special equipment, nothing that requires you to already be in great shape. That's also exactly why it resonates: readers can tell the difference between advice from someone who's done the research and advice from someone who's actually walked the walk.
How did she choose a title and cover that made people stop scrolling?
The Shower Habit is a deliberately intriguing title. It wasn't manufactured, it came from her own real routine, but it also works as marketing: it's curiosity-inducing, light, and not the slightest bit intimidating the way most habit books can feel.
The subtitle does real work too: 10 Steps to Increase Energy, Boost Confidence, and Achieve Your Goals Without Waking Up Earlier. Ten steps is close to the maximum before readers feel exhausted by the promise. And "without waking up earlier" directly answers the objection readers already have in their head before they even click, that a habit book is going to tell them to become a 5 a.m. person. Handling an objection inside the title itself, before a reader ever has the chance to raise it, is one of the most effective things a nonfiction title can do.
The cover, designed through 99designs, is clear, bright and inviting rather than the serious, self-help-shelf look most habit books default to.
π Starting from zero, like Stephanie did? Golden Bestseller Empire guides you step by step. β See the 8 steps
Why did she turn one book into a whole series for the same reader?
This is the part I point to most often as the right way to build a series. Stephanie picked the habits she personally needed the most help with, waking up, falling asleep, and stopping procrastination, and wrote a dedicated book for each one, all for the same core reader.
That's different from a series that splits by audience instead of by need. The books in her Optimize Your Life series are:
- The Shower Habit (Book 1)
- The Sleep Habit: Simple, Natural and Healthy Steps to Sleep Like a Baby in Just 3 Days
- The Success Habit
- Procrastination Hacks to Create Your Best Life One Micro Burst at a Time
- The Fasting Habit (her newest)
Every title follows the same formula that made the first one work: a plain-spoken promise, an objection handled up front ("in just 3 days," "one Micro Burst at a time"), and the same branded cover look across the whole series. A reader who liked one book already trusts the next one.
How does she keep a years-old book still selling?
Stephanie keeps Amazon Ads running continuously in the background, rather than treating advertising as a one-time launch expense. She also uses periodic free or discounted Kindle Unlimited promotion days to give the book fresh visibility. On top of that, she's been a guest on podcasts in her space, including the Mind Hack podcast, which keeps new readers discovering the book long after its original launch window.
π Launch day is easier with a plan. Golden Bestseller Empire includes launch tools and my proven strategies. β See the launch tools
Why did she start a second, very different book?
Alongside the habit series, Stephanie also wrote When Boobs Attack: A Girlfriend's Guide to Breast Cancer, told with real humor as well as real honesty about what she went through. It reaches an entirely different kind of reader, people facing a breast cancer diagnosis themselves, or a family member's, searching for something written by someone who's actually been there.
It's a natural example of what I tell every author in my course: when you have a story only you can tell, from a completely different part of your life, it deserves its own book rather than being squeezed into a series it doesn't belong in.
What can you learn from Stephanie Ewing's case study?
If you take only a few things from Stephanie, take these:
- Write from what you actually lived, not just what you researched. The habit itself came first; the book came after.
- Handle the reader's objection in the title. "Without waking up earlier" removes the one reason someone would scroll past a habit book.
- Build a series around one reader's different needs, not different readers. Waking up, sleeping, procrastination, all for the same person.
- Keep marketing on after launch. Ongoing ads and promo days are why the book is still ranking years later, not just in its first month.
- A second, very different story deserves its own book. Don't force an unrelated topic into a series it doesn't fit.
Stephanie's results are her own, and results vary from author to author. See my Earnings Disclaimer.
How does this fit Amazon's new book algorithm?
Stephanie's title and subtitle work because they describe exactly who the book is for and what objection it overcomes, in plain language a reader (and a reader's own search) immediately understands. That matters even more now, because Amazon is moving toward relationship-based discovery, where a book is understood by who it's for and what it solves, not only by keywords. I've explained how that works in How to Get Your Book Page Ready for AI Shopping.
This is exactly why I built Golden Bestseller Empire the way I did. Your Book Planner blueprint is turned into an algorithm-ready outline and a knowledge graph. That same blueprint then feeds your book description, A+ content, backend keywords, translations and Amazon ads keywords. I don't know of another app that does that.
And your book stays yours. The Writing Studio works like a word processor where you write or dictate, with an AI Writing Coach and an AI Editor on your side.
Watch the full Stephanie Ewing interview
If you'd like to hear Stephanie tell her story in her own words, watch the full interview above, or see her full catalog on her Amazon author page.
If you have a book inside you, whatever the topic, I'd love to help you get it out, the same way I helped Stephanie. Golden Bestseller Empire guides you from your first idea to a published book, step by step, with a full publishing course and AI-assisted tools, and your words stay yours. When you're ready, take a look here.
That's the Stephanie Ewing case study: a breast cancer survivor with a gentle morning routine that became a bestseller, stayed a bestseller for years, and grew into a whole series readers come back for.
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Created By
Top 100 Business Author Β· Carnegie Hall Conductor Β· Founder of Golden Bestseller Empire
Hey, I'm Gundi, and for over a decade, I've helped thousands of everyday people turn what they know into a bestselling book.
Along the way, I sold over 350,000 books, and was listed in Amazon's Top 100 Business Author Charts, ahead of authors like Simon Sinek, BrenΓ© Brown, Tim Ferriss, Robert Kiyosaki, or Brian Tracy.
No traditional publisher. No massive budget. Just understanding Amazon's algorithm and researching what readers actually want.
In my earlier years, I was a classical conductor & organist, touring the world, incl. Carnegie Hall & a performance for the Pope on St. Peter's Square.
These days, I love traveling as a Digital Nomad and orchestrating busy AI Agents π. Out of that came Golden Bestseller Empire β a complete AI-Powered Book Publishing Studio now helping authors around the world.
Can't wait to see you inside & help you publish your dream:
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