I know I need to market. But marketing for indie authors like me is a life of keywords, spreadsheets, and acronyms like CTR and CCP – and that just makes my brain hurt. I try. Really.

But I spend a day analyzing, creating, posting – and PAYING – and then all I’ve done is create MORE work for myself because the following week, I get to “look at the data” and do it all over again. A day of marketing is not only unpleasant for me, but it sucks time out of my writing. Let me tell you about my marketing journey and why I’m choosing NOT to market at this point (much to the detriment of my bottom line).

When I started this full-time writing career, I had visions of working for myself, publishing on a regular basis – and once Shattered Magic was out in the world, I turned my attention to my biggest failure – marketing.

I’m terrible at it. I’ve tried TikTok and Pinterest, I run ads, and I’m pretty reliable at posting on Instagram – but all that time is a swing and a miss in terms of moving books. When I sit down to look at the data, I feel like a total failure—and that mindset affects my productivity as a writer.

So when I made the switch to authorhood, I found someone whose work in book marketing I respect and admire – someone I love to watch and whose advice I trust – and I signed up for a course. I worked that course to the best of my ability – but as much as I loved the creator, I just couldn’t get excited – so I plodded through lessons and homework and webinars for a full 30 days and guess what happened to my next book?

Nothing.

And by nothing I mean I didn’t write a single sentence in 30 days. I just couldn’t. I was so frazzled and beat down by the marketing stuff that I had zero left to give my books.

That 30 days cost me 90 days of writing because I was so discouraged and defeated I had zero joy left for my craft.

Zero, people!

But the stress-quotient was off the charts! My writing space became a place I actively avoided, rather than a place I ran to for refuge.

I could tell because my desk was obsessively clean. Things were filed. Things were labeled. My fancy gold binder clips sparkled while keeping my marketing plan, task lists, and keyword notes all neatly contained. And my computer folders were labeled with spreadsheets, comp authors, and data, data, data.

The clean desk was a sign I was in deep trouble.

It was not the course creator’s fault. That person is amazing. It is a matter of temperament – MY temperament.

A temperament that was cultivated over years of doing exactly that sort of data-driven, spreadsheet-based work in an entirely different profession. A profession I left to write books.

So, I dropped the course. Then I did 60 days of “marketing detox” and realized something: I can spend days writing ad copy and get ZERO joy, or I can spend days writing new adventures. If they sell – great – but I’m not going to sell anything if I can’t write – and if marketing kills writing then I need to banish marketing.

Maybe this will change, but for now, my goal is words on a page. Not ads in a folder – and my binder clips? Safely stored in my desk where they can’t trigger me.