Do What’s Right for You!
There’s writing a book.
Then there’s selling a book.
And they are two vastly different undertakings.
When people say they want to write, it’s because, well, they want to write. Not market a book.
But that’s the reality of getting your book out into the world. The best advice is to start now, as you’re writing, to learn about the industry because it takes time.
I didn’t follow the best advice.
I wanted to. It made sense.
But I couldn’t.
I was much too overwhelmed. The last dregs of my energy, after my full-time job, family, and well, life, went into learning how to write well. How could I also learn this whole new skillset?
So I stopped writing. If I couldn’t figure out the author platform thing and didn’t know how to market my (not-yet-written) book, then why even bother?
Until I realized that’s all it was: advice.
Instead, I stripped away all thoughts of publishing and agents and marketing and platform and networking, and I concentrated on writing. I honed my craft. Learned a lot. Got better.
Then, when I finished my manuscript, I had much more capacity to focus on selling my book. The learning curve was (still is) steeper than writing, but there will always be challenges, right?
So listen to the experts about selling your book. Learn from them. Then listen to yourself and do what’s best for you. After all, you won’t have much to sell if you don’t have much to write. 🙂