This is a common problem that many self-publishers are facing especially those who are just starting. So in today's topic, we'll be discussing why you should stop and don't overthink self-publishing!
Today's question has three points and you're going to want to stick around. Because the third point is going to tell you what you need to do to overcome overthinking your self-publishing. So let's get into it.
The topic of the day is don't overthink self-publishing! Now, this is all too common of a problem for many newly beginning self-publishers and even some who've been doing it for a while but specifically the newbies.
When you're just getting started, you start to realize two big problems. The first is that for everything you're going to do, there's a lot of choices you have to make.
With regards to what you're going to do, where you're going to put your books, which formats they're going to be in, and which tools you're going to use to get them onto the market.
That's the first overthinking. And the second overthinking that you experience it's thinking several steps ahead of the process. So you get started with self-publishing and you're already thinking about all of the other platforms you're going to put it on.
How you're going to market your book and how you're going to do all of these different things? The result is the combination of one or more of these things results in overthinking self-publishing and that ends up stopping your progress.
The one thing you don't do when you overthink is publishing or self-publishing. Get the books onto the market and get them selling. That leaves you feeling completely hopeless in this situation that you're not going to be able to get out of this overthinking.
And you feel like maybe it's making progress but it isn't and this is what we're going to discuss in today's article. But before we get into the answers, you can grab a copy of my free Self-Publishing Checklist.
It will help you make sure that you are not skipping any of the important steps required to get your book onto the market and selling. So let's get into it. Starting a little bit from my own story.
When I first got started, I was trying to find a perfect niche for a new series of set of books. I had already published books under my name on a variety of topics for which it watered down my author name. It's best to stick to a single niche per topic.
As a result, I ended up not making as much money as I could have off of those original early books. But I learned my lesson. So with the newest books, I was trying to find out what the right niche is.
The Downside Of Overthinking
Now I was using a tool called KDSpy. That is the tool that I use when it comes to finding the right keywords. But where did I go wrong? I began to overthink the process.
I was coming up with lots of keywords that would be great for the book. I spent a ton of infinite time searching and researching. And I discovered multiple niches that would all be just fine.
I didn't have to find the perfect niche, so any of these niches would have been sufficient. The thing is I didn't make the choice, rather I kept on this process of researching and overthinking it all. Finally, I slowed things down and realized that what exactly am I doing?
I then choose a specific niche that I was going to publish in. Because I found many that would be just fine. I started earning money and a decent amount of money on that niche that I ended up choosing.
And the thing is I began to wonder how much money did I lose in the time I was waiting to publish the book? The overthinking was costing me money. Since the time that you're using for this overthinking is time you could have used to just get a book on the market.
Check out this related article: Where Can You Find Self-Publishing Help?
Then that book on the market every day has a percentage of a chance of how many copies it's going to sell in a given day. That then takes away time from your next book that you're going to get onto the market. And exactly we repeat the process over and over.
Overthinking was costing me money, so don't overthink self-publishing! So what are the ways that we're going to deal with this? The first is overthinking stops you from doing.
Particularly not just doing, doing in general. It is not okay but doing that will lead to a profit on the books that you're doing and increase the value that you're putting on to the market.
This is a very important thing that we're wanting to do. As opposed to overthinking the whole thing with regards to the alternative there. Number two, overthinking tempts you to spend a huge amount of time "researching".
The reason I say researching in quotes is that you need to do a little bit. It's good to be in a forum of people or in general, you should not be researching and researching. You should learn a little bit and use that knowledge to move on to the next step.
Focus On The Next Step
Some people call it "just-in-time-learning" as opposed to this overthinking. We are going to be learning what we can do and what are the best steps in participating in forums where people can help us with this?
But at the end of the day, it is doing, that is the most profitable thing. So do not learn just in case learning where you were just learning all sorts of stuff. That may be at some point in the future we're going to need to know how it works or how this could be helpful.
We don't care about that. We only want things that are going to be useful to us immediately at the phase that we're in right now. When we move further down into the future, then new items become just-in-time-learning.
Where we're learning the next skill set like how to market our book. Or if you're already in the marketing phase, maybe we'll be getting it into different formats, then you already have it. And so these are just a couple of the key things with just-in-time-learning to help you avoid overthinking and over researching.
The secret answer of the day is just focused on the next step to getting your book onto the market and selling. If you've already got your book on the market, well then the next step will be getting ads running against it or using other marketing things.
Once we've got that in place specifically Amazon ads, then we're ready for the next step after that. The next step is getting into different formats so that we can start seeing the money flowing in from a whole series of networks.
So if one like Amazon for example decided to drop the royalty rate, we already have our book on other sites. So that we're protected against that possibility. I've seen some people get their accounts shut down or blocked by Amazon.
You're able to still be earning money on the other networks. And so this is something that I can't overemphasize how important it is. But you're focusing on the next step.
So, don't overthink self-publishing! We don't need to overthink self-publishing, we just focus on one thing at a time and move from there. Do you find yourself overthinking your self-publishing?
If you do, write the word "yes" below in the comments and if you don't, write the word "no". That will definitely help me understand where you're coming from.
So I can produce articles that will be more helpful to you. And check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.