In any endeavour, overwhelm can become a thing, a REAL thing.
2025 started off well in terms of my writing. I finalised the new set of covers for my four stories, added a bonus chapter to the first three, then went through the editing and publishing process for book four. The set was complete – YAY!! I also finished a short story for my newsletter subscribers to introduce them to the world and the characters. I hauled out and dusted off the cobwebs from a story I began in 2023 (I think) and edited the words I had and then the fun began…
What fun, you might ask? OVERWHELM, of course.
I love writing. I love stringing words together to describe what I see in my mind; of the ups and downs of people I’ve never met. Yet, I do want people to read these stories. I want them to enjoy the tales as much as I enjoy writing them. And, this is the problem. Because how do you get your books in the hands of people who might enjoy reading them? You have to market your books.
First I had the whole “people will only read your books if they have descriptive sex in them”. Ummmm….NO!
Then I had the “you have to have an email list” and “you must have a Facebook group” and “you have to market your books on BookTok”.
All these ‘you have to’ and ‘you must’ things that a person who wants to sell lots of books needs to do. The list of things kept growing and growing and there we have it: COMPLETE OVERWHELM. The number of things other authors tell you that you should be doing if you want to be successful.
Yet, what is success? I’d be stupid not to want to sell millions of copies of my books because this book production lark costs a LOT of money, so, yes, I’d like to be able to support my passion while still being able to have a roof over my head and food on my table. But do I want to do anything other than write? No.
My brain was so filled with all the things I don’t want to do that I forgot what it is that I DO want to do-and that’s write.
“Take it one step at a time” I’m told but that one step means so much more of the stuff I don’t want to do. Take newsletters for example. First I have to sign up to a newsletter provider (hello Mailerlite – I joined in 2022 and have I sent one email?) Then your domain has to be authenticated (help! domain host – please can you assist me?) Once that’s done, I need to start sending emails. But no – that’s not right. I need to have a sequence of emails warmly welcoming people who want to hear from me on a regular basis and in order to entice them to sign up for these regularly scheduled missives, I have to have a short story or something similarly unique to include in the sequence. But how do they get this enticement? I have to open a paid account with BookFunnel to be able to securely send them the item I’ve promised. And I haven’t sent an email yet….
So, to sum up just this one ‘need to’ I should be doing:
- I need a website which I need to regularly update (btw)
- I need an email service provider
- I need the email service provider to authenticate my domain
- I need to write a short story as an enticement or reward for signing up
- I need a place for people to get that short story
- therefore I need a paid BookFunnel account
- I need to learn how to use BookFunnel and then regularly check that account
- I then need to learn how to use the email service provider’s set up so I can finally use it
- I need to write a compelling sequence of emails to welcome (and keep) subscribers
- I need to keep sending emails
Don’t you think that’s a lot of things I need to do? AND that’s just one of the things I should be doing if I want people to know I’ve released a new book.
Overwhelm? HELL YES!