Are you releasing your book while you’re in the process of writing your first draft? If so, you could be killing your creativity and stunting your book’s progression from idea to full story. 

Self-published authors have a lot to consider, from book concept to publication. That means it’s a little too easy for us to get ahead of wherever we are in the publishing process now. If you’re pouring time and energy into planning your book’s release while trying to create the first draft of your book, you’re going to sabotage your process.

How to Prioritize Publishing Tasks 

Self-publishing can be incredibly overwhelming for many authors because we’re responsible for every part of the book development process. It can be difficult to prioritize each piece of the puzzle well, but it’s important to put each phase in its place early on. 

Let’s simplify it: if you’re in the middle of writing your first draft of a new book, focus on writing. Full stop. Once you reach the editing and polishing processes, it’s much easier to begin thinking about marketing and sales. 

(I’ll pause there to note that there is a significant difference between sharing your progress and promoting your book to secure sales. Posting unedited snippets, talking about your characters, and sharing things with readers about a WIP is different than trying to get new readers, attracting them to your pre-order, setting up ads, and other sales-related tasks.)

The ability to prioritize your process will help you keep your head in your story while you write. Prioritizing well requires a shift in perspective. 

First, acknowledge that selling your book is indeed important–once your story is complete. Then, stop worrying about how, exactly, you’re going to sell all the copies you need to break even on your investment (you know you’ve done it–me, too). 

Cutting out the worry requires having a “Yes, and” discussion with yourself. If your inner monologue is working overtime to convince you that you have to think about sales now, just respond with, “Yes, and I’ll handle that when the book is finished.” That way, you’re not spending a ton of energy arguing with yourself. (But if you are, you know…no judgment here.)

Now that we’ve established that “yes, brain, sales are important,” here’s another critical point: the process of creating a story is a journey, and your finished book is a product. 

It’s counterproductive to worry about selling a product you haven’t created yet. So, let’s differentiate the story from the product in order to prioritize effectively. 

Storytelling ≠ Selling

The creative process of developing your characters, building your world, and discovering your plot is a journey. You need focus and undivided attention in order for your story to become fully realized. That requires a lot of creative energy, and it’s important to preserve and protect that energy while you’re developing your book.

The editing process takes the story you’ve created on your journey and refines it. Like writing, editing requires a tremendous amount of creative energy–though it’s channeled in a different way. 

Once your book is finished and ready to be released, it becomes a product that you now need to sell. Shifting your perception of your book from a journey to a product helps you to detach from it before you launch.

Selling Requires “Strategy Brain”  

Releasing (mentally) while you write drains creativity and moves us into a completely different headspace–let’s call it “strategy brain”. Strategy brain will not serve your story creation process well, so you need to put it on hold while you write.

Marketing and selling require strategic thinking, positioning, and carefully-planned action in order to get your stories into the right hands. But if you think with your strategy brain while you’re trying to craft an incomplete story, you’ll inevitably end up writing it to satisfy whatever strategic criteria you think you need in the moment. 

For example, let’s say you’re a romance writer, and you want to boost your sales. Rather than diving deeper into your own values as a storyteller, you look to what the market is doing–and you notice that sexy books seem to be selling really well. You don’t really want to write steamy books, but you begin adding sex to your stories to meet market demands. You’re suddenly not feeling so great about writing this story, right?

(While market research can be very valuable, it can also be subversive. So if you’re researching trends, stop to ask whether the trends for your genre align with your values as a writer before you dive in headfirst.) 

Strategizing while you write doesn’t serve you as a writer–and it also doesn’t serve your characters, your story, or (ironically) your readers.

Simplify Your Process

Trying to figure out how you’re going to sell a product you haven’t yet created puts too much pressure on both the story and the creative process. When in doubt, keep your process simple and stay focused on the phase you’re in right now.

Remember, you get the final word on how you’re going to get your stories into the world. Taking things one step at a time is the real secret to successfully publishing and selling your books.

The older I get the less I believe in correct and incorrect decisions.

I’m not saying I don’t look back at my “regular life” and my “writing life” and go – WHAT THE VERY HELL WAS I THINKING??? But I will say that most often, I remember WHY I made a given decision at a given time. (like the tattoo on my leg that I wish was something different)

When I got my FIRST ACCEPTANCE FOR PUBLICATION I jumped on it. Of COURSE I did!! Someone said they believed in my story enough to want to put it in print. WOW. They were a small, niche press, but MY BOOK MADE IT TO THE SHELVES OF SOME BOOKSTORES! I had some serious regret even before that book came out. Two years later, I’d have done ANYTHING to take that decision back. Now? It’s part of what put me where I am today.

Now that I’m coming up on TEN years after that moment, there are a lot of things I would have done differently, but then I realize that I learned too much to give up that experience. And all the things I learned, are things that helped me later on.

I can say this same thing about my first agent. I remembered why I chose who I did. And now that I can stand here, seven years away from the decision to walk away from that situation, I think – yep, that was HARD, but it helped me so much.

A few friends of mine have had setbacks this week, and it brought this same thought to me again. Yes, but these people did the right thing for them at that time, and who knows what would have been different, or what different challenges would have been faced if they chose differently AT THAT TIME.

There’s an old saying or an old story or proverb or whatever you want to call it that goes something like this:

Villagers in the small town continued to go to their leaders complaining about aspects of their lives. Wrongs that had been laid against them, burdens they carried. So the town decided to get together and put all their problems and offenses and burdens in a pot, and they could trade one with another. As they reached in to trade, each person chose the burden they had put in the pot over the trials of their friends.

There’s a lot to be learned from this, I think. We’re more equipped to handle what’s thrown at us than we realize. Our hardships are our hardships. We learn. We grow. And with luck (and using the people we surround ourselves with) we come out better than we went in.

I know almost no one who has had a smooth road to publication (even when it seems that way from the outside). But still we press on, a little smarter than before, a little more experienced than before, and a little more ready to face what’s coming.

Now I feel like I should end with something cheesy like – FLY LIKE AN EAGLE!!! THE WORLD IS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS!!

In brief, I will just say – If you’re writing in hopes of starting a career, think of the long-game. So many of our challenges can be lessened with a little perspective. Also, know you have lots of times for some serious ups and downs. Enjoy the ride.

~ Jo