Twenty-nine weeks after the first day of the second new year

In her post last week, Author talked about the practicalities of publishing a book. And in doing so, she made an assumption about the writers among you. She assumed that you are here to stay. That you will publish your first book, completing all the practical steps involved, and that you will then continue to your next book, and then to your next one and to the one after that. She assumed that you’re a writer, that you want to be an author, that you intend to publish books for the rest of your life.

But that’s not always the case. Author and Sister have encountered authors who have stopped. Who have published a book or two and then chose not to continue. Their books might even still be available on Amazon, but no one is there to care for them, and the number of days, months, years since their last publication date grows without a new book being added. No, there aren’t many of these writers, in fact it seems that they’re a rare few. But this phenomenon needs to be noted. After all, we are all at risk of stopping, and for the wrong reasons.

If you’ve stopped writing or are considering stopping, the question is why. If you decided to stop because you don’t enjoy what you do, and you really don’t want to continue, then that’s fine. It happens. People try something, they find that they don’t like it, and they move on to do something else. Maybe you love to read and thought you will love to write, and it turned out that you don’t. Or maybe you looked at successful writers and thought, how hard can it be, and it turned out that it’s more difficult than you thought, that success isn’t as immediate as you’ve hoped, and that anyway you don’t enjoy it at all. In that case, sure, find something else to do that you will enjoy.

But whatever you do, don’t stop because you don’t know how to complete a book to where it’s publishable, or how to publish it, or how to sell it once it’s published. If you don’t know how to do whatever step you’re stuck in on the way to completing a book, preparing it for publication and publishing it, then read, check, ask. We’ve all been there and have scaled the knowledge barrier, and so can you. If you don’t know what to do after you’ve published, how to publicize your book, then once again—read, check, ask, and if you’re still lost, find someone who can help you with that part of it. There’s no shame in that, we’re not meant to know everything, and publicizing and selling take a different set of skills than writing. And again, we’ve all been there.

And if you’re stopping just because you’re afraid, then, well, we’ve certainly all been there, we’ve all been afraid. But fear is no reason to stop. What you’re afraid of is failure, yet how many times in your life have you been afraid of failure and still persevered in your efforts? And as Author has pointed out again and again: what if you succeed? Yes, fear is a power full factor. But everyone is afraid. Those who still dare to try, those who dare to try again and again, they are the ones who succeed. And if you do receive bad feedback to a book, then, yes, that hurts. But think about it: as a writer, you will create a line of books that are provided to your readers one after the other. With each one, you can improve, write better, write more interesting, learn from your own lessons and from the feedback on your previous books. With each book you can strive to become a better writer and succeed better in doing so. So if you love to write, stick with it.

The first book is difficult to get to publication because you’re new at it and are learning as you go all the necessary steps involved in taking a story from thought to publication. The second is easier in that sense, and in the third or fourth experience kicks in. What doesn’t change, at least until you succeed as a writer, is the way you feel with every book that you publish. You’re on edge. And you won’t be less on edge when your second, or third book comes out, especially if you still aren’t selling, if you’ve got all those titles up on Amazon but are still only an anonymous writer with less readers than you’d hoped. And yes, it’s far more acute with time, that feeling, the fear, because you’re all too aware of the fact that every day that your book is out there it’s exposed to millions of people worldwide, and so at some point doubt creeps in that maybe you were wrong, maybe you’re not good enough.

While at some stage you will have scaled the initial hurdles of writing and will then be able to take a book all the way to publication, until you’ve succeeded in achieving sales, a name for yourself, a noticeable presence as an author, you won’t be less afraid. You’ll just be more experienced at it. Which means that you’ll know ahead of the publication of each of your books how you’re going to feel, but that awareness won’t prevent you feeling it. Experience here means that you’ll be able to deal with it. You’ll be able to do things other than just pacing around trying not to think about it. You’ll be able to continue to do other things, and effectively so, while you think about it.

And what you should do is write your next book. Not just because you love to write, and writing just might make you feel better, but also because you’ll know that you’re on your way to another book that you can give your readers. After all, after you’ve published once, readers will expect to see more of your works, and ultimately you can’t just sit and wait while doing nothing, you need to publish a number of works in order to make a name for yourself, become a name that is known. But no less important, it keeps you busy. It keeps you immersed in the story, the next plot, the next world you’re building, instead of thinking about your fear, instead of constantly thinking about the book you’ve just published, the one that’s already out there for everyone to see, the book you want so badly to be the one marking the beginning of success.

Author’s tip for this week: Don’t bail out for the wrong reasons. If you love what you do, fight to continue doing it, to succeed. And if you’ve come all this way, if you’ve already published books, this isn’t the place to stop.

But you know what, it certainly is a good place to look forward, plan ahead. You know the steps involved in writing a book and making it available to your readers, and your mind is free to focus on plots for the books ahead. And by now you should know what you like most to write and what you’re better at writing, and you should have clear view of the book you’ll write next, perhaps even the two or three books you’ll proceed to. It’s good to have the next book to look forward to. It gives you a sense of continuity, a sense of purpose, a clearer sense of the road ahead. So take a breath, find the way to take the next step, and press on.