The scope of this post goes much further than just your writing and publishing, but I will make those things the focus of what I share. There is a tendency sometimes to over complicate, and accumulate rather than slim down and simplify. It happens in life, in family, and it happens in business. My aim here is to convince you that sometimes more is not better, and simple systems and processes can be the most liberating adjustments to your publishing endeavours you will ever make.
Writing is a lonely business. That’s the way we like it as writers. People complicate the flow. But when the desire for solitude creeps into the business side of a writer’s life it causes problems. It leads to wanting control of every aspect of the publishing process. From writing to editing, covers to promotion, our hand is firmly on each and every part. It is hard to let go when you are used to creating the story yourself.
But to grow you must let go.
And to let go you must simplify.
Press The Pause Button and Reassess The Stresses on Your Time and Business
The most productive thing I have done in my business recently has been to press the pause button on production and take the time instead to consider the process.
Get granular with your profit producing activities, and document them carefully and clearly. This needs to be done in a way that someone else, with little or no experience, can follow. Develop a documented pathway from inception to publication.
In doing so you will soon realise that there are elements in your process that are not easily reproduced. Your job is to determine which ones are essential and non-negotiable, and which ones are merely preference and icing on your publishing cake. You need to wipe away any complicated frills and make duplication of your book creation pathway as easy as humanly possible, without sacrificing essential qualities.
For me this process has also forced me to find new ways to do things, to discover new tools and apps and procedures, that extract the complexities that may have been easy for me but would certainly prove troublesome for others without the same level of experience.
It actually led me to develop quicker more intuitive pathways that require less effort to fulfil the core components of my publishing and promotion pathway.
It has helped me to bridge the different components and consider how they can flow more seamlessly one to another – so other people can take on each part, and one part of the process can be completed and handed to the next person without cause for question or confusion.
The ‘me’ Factor
The greatest benefit I see is that it has increasingly taken the ‘me’ factor out of the publishing side of my business so ‘I’ am free to simply write, unhindered by the frustrations of all the machinery that goes along with balancing art and business, passion and profit.
I urge you, fellow indie publishers, take a long hard look at your processes. Make them as simple and seamless as they can possibly be.
Determine them.
Document them.
Outsource to other capable hands the elements that do not require your controlling hand.
At the outset this may seem burdensome. Time spent doing things other than writing or profit producing. But the fruits of the exercise will lead to a greater liberation to pursue your passions, and to live the life of the indie writer you always dreamed was possible.
Simplify to multiply.
Simple.
