Are you struggling to make any progress on your self-publishing journey? Here are the 3-must do-daily self-publishing habits for beginners that you should follow.
Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around because the third point is a secret. It's my absolute best habit for increasing productivity when it comes to self-publishing. That's one of the reasons why in today's topic, we are going to be talking about 3-Must Do-Daily Self-Publishing Habits For Beginners.
By the end of this article, you're going to know why habits are so important when it comes to self-publishing. You're going to have the three top self-publishing habits that I have. The habits that I use when it comes to self-publishing are to maximize productivity.
You're going to feel great because you're going to see yourself producing a lot more for your self-publishing. Whether it's getting the books out there or getting your books to sell. You're going to see what exactly is the impact of implementing these habits on your self-publishing journey.
I can tell you, after having put out several books that hit the Amazon bestseller list, I've started to see over the years several key things about the books that win and the books that lose on Amazon. Often, it's not necessarily a huge thing with your book but something really small.
That's one of the reasons why I offer free discovery sessions. Not to go through the solutions for your things because I have other things for that. But at least to help you identify the key problems you're having with your book.
Even if you're first getting started, look at possible problems you may be having as a result of self-publishing. You can check out and book a free Discovery Session and we can identify some of the problems you may be experiencing.
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So, about a year ago, in my 1-On-1 Program, I was meeting with Gary. He was a mystery author who was writing lots of mystery books. But one of the problems that he discovered was that he was having a challenge with making any progress.
There wasn’t anything coming along. His productivity level had dropped to almost zero. A lot of the enthusiasm and excitement about his whole writing of these mysteries, the series that he was working on, was starting to disappear and completely evaporate.
The thing was his main challenge was that he was unable to find any time for his self-publishing. But that was because he wasn't implementing the correct self-publishing habits. So, here's the thing and this is what we discussed: we want to increase productivity.
You need to get certain key habits in place and I'm going to tell you, some habits are really bad. One of the things is it's where we get into a rhythm of doing certain things daily that result in our long-term wins.
What we expect ourselves to be able to accomplish in just a couple of weeks is way too much when it comes to just a short period. But then when it comes to a long period like several years, we underestimate the huge number of things that we can accomplish in that period. Does that make sense?
Focusing On A Habit-Based Goal
So, here are the key self-publishing habits. Number one, you should set a daily time goal. One of the people who introduced this concept was Seinfeld. He was saying, look, you need to practice and do something. You do it every day and you mark it off on a calendar where you're marking off those days.
As you mark the days on the calendar off, you're forming a chain with those on the calendar and he calls it: don't break the chain so you're keeping daily. But I am not basing this upon, I want to get my next 30 books out by the end of the month, and then I need another 40 books by the end.
This creates stress. But if you focus more on a time and process-based goal, a habit-based goal which is I can get as much or as little done but I'm going to devote this amount of time. I'm telling you, one of the really powerful ones I've seen with many of my clients that help rocket things forward, it's the five-minute rule.
Every day of the week, you're going to do five minutes of self-publishing. So, you set a clock and you get going on. I use a die timer which is completely free and so that's something you might want to check out.
Ask me more in the comments if you're curious about the name or how exactly that works out. Because I just start the timer when I'm working and I stop it. So, it helps me keep track to make sure. Now for me, I'm not looking at five minutes, I'm looking at a lot more time than that.
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But I had some really dry periods in my self-publishing journey. Where I felt I couldn't get anything done because I didn't have any time just like Gary. So, one of the keys there of course was setting a timer and saying look, I'm going to do five minutes.
That then brings us to our number two issue. It is that we need to make sure that in business, we're spending our time on this whole self-publishing of our books. Whether it's writing them, formatting them, and getting the covers. As well as organizing the people who are going to be doing these.
Different freelancers doing these different gigs for us. When it comes to getting the book onto the market and selling it. Using content marketing and running advertisements against it. What are we doing that's right and what are we doing that's wrong that we need to improve upon?
We want to make sure that we're focused on the most important items. For me, that involves using a tool where I can organize these. I use Todoist, which is a tool I've been using for many years, probably I think it goes back eight years.
I've been using this particular tool. It is a fantastic way of staying on track. You're saying, look, these are the important ones, you can prioritize them and then make sure you've scheduled them out. So, you're going to get them done first before you do anything else.
Carrying Out Your Goals
This is a huge skill that I'm telling you, sometimes it's maybe only five percent of the population even able to handle the use of a task management system. But you'll find that in your personal life if you can get into the habit of using Todoist, you're going to thank me in the long run.
Because this is such a powerful and very inexpensive tool to use. You can even try it out completely for free. So, you would want to check that out. This is one of those key ones to make major progress in a short time.
It is that you don't find yourself wasting time focusing on low-priority events. That then brings us to our third and secret answer to my most powerful habit. The most powerful habit and this one here trumps everything else. I told you about that dry time I had where I wasn't making progress and what exactly did I do?
The answer is I hired somebody for accountability. Somebody who is a business coach that would be able to look at what I was doing. To help me focus on what are the most important tasks I should be using my time on to move forward and rock it forward my self-publishing business.
This was a really powerful tip that they had which was this idea even if you have an accountability person who's holding you accountable to make sure you achieve each day what you said you were going to achieve, a perfect way to do this is through the Group Coaching program that I offer.
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It is where you're able to go in and update Volley, and your progress and I respond to every person's comment there daily. Or going back and forth to ensure that you achieve your self-publishing goals.
This one is probably the most important of all of them. Because whether you set a day or at least a time goal but then don't do it or you have your list of the most important things but you're not carrying it out, you need somebody to hold you accountable.
Somebody who is not a family member or friend, they are way too nice. I'm nice too but at least I'm able to say look, what have you done? What's happening? Are we focusing on the most important things?
Then we're able to explore and double down on that. That's one of the reasons why group coaching is something I wish I could go back to the beginning of my self-publishing career. I would have joined something like that a lot earlier.
But I have a question for you that I want you to answer, what habit have you found is the most important for making progress in your self-publishing? Is it one of the ones that I mentioned or something else? Let me know below in the comments and check out my other blogs and videos for more self-publishing answers to your questions.