Focus
Sadly, I’ve been in self-publishing since 2012 without much to show for it. It’s not because the industry is poor or does not support indie authors. In fact, there are many self-published authors who are making milllllions. Yes, millions. The market is there. It is thriving and there is room for everyone.
Naysayers will say that the market is saturated. True, there are more indies now than ever before, but that’s a great thing. Self publishing has given closet writers a platform to share their work. That means the consumers have more to choose from. And choose from writers who have not been limited by structures and rules. Talk about freedom, right?
I love self-publishing. I do. I’ve grown a lot since 2012 and I have learned to do things I would have never imagined even trying. Say for example, this blog. I say ‘sadly’ because I have not made significant money. I’ve made some, but only enough to buy myself a lunch or two. I suppose even that is more than what other writers have made. Marketing and selling is really hard!
While I can spend another six years complaining about marketing and blaming my inability to grasp it, I’ve decided to do some honest and painful self-reflection. You know what I determined?
It’s not the marketing. Nope. It’s still hard, but it’s not the source problem.
At the root of it all, it is about my insecurities as a writer.
I love my stories. I love my characters. But, what if readers don’t?
What if they hate what I do? What if they don’t get the story at all? What if they-leave-nasty-reviews-and-ruin-any-chance-I-have-of-becoming-a-successful-author? On and on, my mind yammers on. And I believe it. So I go to my safe place. If my books are not selling, then I won’t have readers hating me. If there are no haters, then I don’t need to act.
Once in a while though, this monsters that tromps around in my head goes to sleep. Reason wakes and gets me to do very small scale marketing. Guess what? I get downloads. Not a lot, but considering I’m not spending a lot of money on advertising – the downloads are decent. The downloads are to my free novel, I don’t get paid, but still… the downloads are there.
Yes, I still feel marketing sucks-ass. But it is necessary for any Creative who wishes to come out of the shadows. But the thing is, marketing can be learned. There are more systems and guides out there about marketing , finding your niche, having a launch plan, and using the right SEOs, etc, etc. You just have to google and you will be taken to an abundant trove of information. It’s not easy, but it can be learned. And in my minimal experience with marketing, I quickly realized there is a significant amount of trial and error. It’s the normal and part of the learning process tied to the fast paced changing environment of self-publishing.
Enough about my marketing whine.
As I was saying, ‘sadly’ because I feel like I have wasted time. In these past six years, what I should have really honed in on was WHY I got into self-publishing in the first place. My why was to write great books and entertain. It wasn’t originally about the money, that came later.
So… now that I can be honest with myself and I can focus on what is really important for me, I can also focus my actions.
Here’s the plan: For the next year, I’m giving myself till December 31, 2019 (a little more than a year) to work on my writing skills and gain confidence in my abilities as a story teller. Boom! That’s it.
I’m not going to worry about making money with my books cause that puts me in a bad mood. It’ll all come. My focus will be on the process of writing. Writing well. Writing consistently. Who knows, if I get enough courage at the end of this, I may enter a writing contest. It would be nice to get some sort of validation and hopefully keep my insecure writer mentality at bay.
I’ll be studying a lot these next many months and I’ll share what I learn with you too. I hope to glean nuggets of wisdom everywhere.
Thanks for being here 🙂
Photo by Ameen Fahmy on Unsplash
