Are you feeling stuck? Do this exercise

The day to day of the independent author can be a mental grind. Things move slowly in the publishing world. Very few of us put out a book and watch it speed into the stratosphere while we clap and point at its unhindered journey to the sky.

Instead, we slowly create a readership while we nurture the book with promotions, collaborations, and giveaways. Then we wait for the reviews to drip in, hoping each time that we “get a good one.” We market books we care about for three to five years, often even longer, and pray that one day they will gain the momentum that compounds into a verifiable blast-off.

We put our new titles on Netgalley and BookSirens, and we pass out advance reader copies like they’re book-shaped candy. We very kindly beg Instagram reviewers to give our books a chance, and we pay professional reviewers to provide their expert opinions (while we pray for a starred designation). We attend in-person events that we painstakingly plan for weeks in advance, and while there we shyly ask passersby to “subscribe to our email list.”

Sometimes lightning strikes. Something happens to raise the book’s visibility and sales, and things become exciting for a little while. Sales occur. Other times, nothing happens for days, not even KENP page reads. If the nothing goes on for too long, we worry. Doubt ourselves. Forget every last positive thing readers have said about our books.

We find ourselves asking, Why am I doing this? Why am I trying to accomplish something that’s so hard?

But wait. Self-publishing is a long game, and we know that.

We must keep trying, keep doing the things that draw attention to our titles. If we give up, our not-yet-thriving authorship is over. We could just go back to writing for ourselves, and that would be fine, if that’s what we really want to do. But is it?

The other option is to continue to push. We can keep going even though it’s uncomfortable and frustrating and sometimes we feel like we have absolutely no control—and that we are getting nowhere.

Nowhere?

Think back to the time before you self-published a book.

Most likely you’ve come a lot farther than you realize and have learned so much more than you are giving yourself credit for.

Go back to the time when you were a lonely writer diligently typing keys, hoping that one day you would finish your precious debut and deem it ready for an agent’s eyes. Think back to the person who sent that book to those faceless keepers of the gate and waited. And waited some more. Collecting kind rejection slips—and cold ones too. That person who remained patient though they felt uncomfortable and frustrated and like they had no control!

Like they were getting nowhere.

What would that person—your past self—think about all that you’ve accomplished since then? If you knew three or five years ago what you’d have done by 2024, how proud (and surprised) would you have been?

You’ve finished a book. (There was a time when that in itself felt undoable.)

You’ve taken that book through the many phases of the editorial process.

You’ve obtained a cover for the book.

You’ve created a page design.

You’ve acquired readers.

You’ve received compliments and good reviews. (You may even have some fans.)

If you’ve joined social media platforms or started a blog, you’ve created a platform and hopefully joined a community of writers, no matter how small or large, organized or not.

You’ve sold books.

You’ve attended in-person events.

You’ve created a marketing plan and purchased promos for your books.

The list goes on and on.

You didn’t “just” write a book. You started a new business. You may even agree that you’ve developed a new lifestyle (even if only part-time)! No doubt you have grown quite a bit as a person—and a writer—as you did so.

Maybe you even went on to write another book, ready and willing to do it all again. And do it better.

So, the next time you’re feeling stuck, bat that silly thought away. You are far from stuck. It may not feel like you’re traveling at lightspeed, but you are moving forward. There is no doubt at all that you and your writing career are making progress.

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