If you are thinking of quitting at self-publishing but you are having second thoughts about it, then this is for you. Let me share with you the secret that will help you decide, should you quit at self-publishing or not?
In today's article, we have three points that we're going to look at and you're going to want to stick around for the third one. Because the third point is a secret as to what will help you best decide whether you should quit at self-publishing and maybe not quit at self-publishing.
So let's get into it. Today's question is should you quit at self-publishing? Now, when you're first getting started as an author and you're getting your very first book on the market, it's so exciting.
We have high hopes for that very first book. I have many students who often think that "oh my goodness! I'm going to be making so much money from my very first book". They will also ask "what am I going to do? all these people want to contact me".
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to make this level of success in your very first book. So you could get lucky but generally speaking, this isn't going to happen. And what happens is if our expectations and our goals are so high, we first get the book on the market and then wonder "where are all the sales of my book?".
Many people are so demotivated by this that instead of staying with it, they start to wonder deep inside "should I quit? have I failed at this? well, I got the book on the market".
Maybe you didn't even get it on the market, maybe it was so confusing. You've taken other courses where they made it so confusing for you. And it was difficult to actually get your book and follow the instructions they gave.
So, you never even got to that point. But whatever the case is, you're wondering "maybe now is the time to quit". This is what I want to address in today's article.
But before we get into the answers, grab a copy of my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist. To make sure that you are not skipping the steps you need to be doing to win self-publishing.
So let's get into it. Quitting? I've spent a lot of time considering this very issue of when exactly you should quit. When I first self-published my very first book, I got it onto the market.
Like many people, you discover quickly that the book isn't going to sell itself. So you try lots of strategies, you hear other authors trying. Some of these things are very confusing and not very easy to follow but you do your best.
After some time, maybe you're making a sale here and a sale there. You're thinking, "this is not working out". That was exactly where I had reached after only 1 year of self-publishing.
So I thought, well maybe I should try something else online to see if it's possible to get some revenue and money coming in. I thought maybe I should go into foreign exchange currencies. I had listened to somebody who was dealing with forex, specifically focusing on the Mexican peso and doing trading on this.
I had taken a course for $40 that would show the tools you need and how to start trading a Mexican peso. The reason they sold this particular idea was that you can watch the Mexican peso go up. Then it goes down a little bit and then a little up again.
Then they were buying and selling. Doing day trading off of those pesos and then making an entire living off of that. And I thought this seems very exciting.
Buy High Sell Low
So I started the course and as I was moving into this course on pesos. I began to see something very clear. What happened was as the price of the pesos went up, he would draw a line and say "look it's a ceiling".
That means that it changes direction and starts moving down. Then he would say "okay now it hit a floor". And he would draw a line where it turns around and starts going up an inflection point. It starts turning around and going up, easy enough.
You just sell when you reach a ceiling and you buy when it hits a floor. Buy high sell low, it's very simple, that is until I watch the next step on his courses. Because then, the next time the ceiling is higher or a little bit lower, he draws a new line and says "look we have a new ceiling".
Then it goes down and hits a new floor. After I had seen him draw a hundred lines on his thing, no matter what it did, he would point out that it turns when it hits that ceiling or that floor. I was like "oh my goodness, he's just guessing at this" and that was demotivating for me.
As I was trying to figure out what exactly was the trick for this particular thing when we're trying to figure it out. So what did I do? Drawing lines everywhere, I decided it was time to quit.
I had already quit self-publishing and I quit the other. And so I was like what am I supposed to do? And the answer was I ended up taking a course in self-publishing.
I began to understand that without taking courses and Coaching, it makes it very difficult to win self-publishing. Now, it's nothing personal, you could stick in it and just keep losing until you figure that crack the code. But without courses and without taking coaching, it makes it very very difficult.
The fact is that I began to take it. And what was the result? Well, the answer was I suddenly saw a jump in sales. Because I was not optimizing my books, I wasn't doing marketing correctly, there were so many things I didn't understand when it came to self-publishing, I had a jump in my motivation.
Check out this related article: Do You Want To Sell More Books?
And since that point, 200 books later and running strong. I'm making profits off of these books using the very same strategies. These are the things that I paid a lot of money for and I'm giving away for free to you here.
Where you're able to understand better what it takes to make a living off of self-publishing. Where you're able to pull in enough money. That then keeps it going, it keeps the machine flowing.
That was something that I was amazed at, I didn't believe it. I had quit already on the first time then I tried something else and quit it. And what I began to understand was that I just lacked information.
Now, with the forex, it's a lot more guessing. I know some of you all probably make a killing and do great in that. But I'm just telling you that self-publishing is very consistent, the rules are not too complicated.
Assuming it's explained easily and that is exactly what we're focused on this blog. To try to make it so easy that anyone can do it. You can be a child and follow the instructions to get your books onto the market and sell.
Continuous Improvement
So should you quit at self-publishing? Now here it comes "Yes", you should quit if you've discovered you don't have the time to invest every day in self-publishing. It's a terrible idea and waste of time to simply try to hope for the best.
Or maybe start a little bit of here or there, you're never going to get the book out. So you need to invest a little bit of time, 5 minutes a day is sufficient. But ideally about half an hour to an hour would be even better to get your first book on the market.
As we start seeing sales, we'd motivate ourselves. If you don't see that you have the time, then it is probably best just to quit right away. So I would say "Yes", quitting is the correct choice for you.
But the answer is "No", you should not quit self-publishing if you can stay motivated. The authors who are earning a hundred thousand or more per year have at least 40 books on average each on Amazon. That is a very important thing you need to realize.
There are maybe some authors who have one book and they're doing well. But for the most part, it's the quantity of getting books onto the market. You get better with each book that you put out there.
You learn more and you're able to get better sales even on the earlier books. We can go back and optimize our earlier books, no problem. The secret answer of today is that it is all about continuous improvement.
Now, I'm going to define that. It's where you look and see, you try something and see whether it worked or didn't work. If it did work, you do more of that. If it didn't work, you ask why it didn't work?
Check with the community, ask me below in the comments. I will help you work through these issues. If you want to do it one-on-one, we can do that as well.
But you'll get free here just in the comments. I will definitely help you, one-on-one with your particular issue and you make improvements. We don't even need to make big improvements, small improvements can have huge impacts.
So it's all about small steady improvements every day and that is exactly what I am focused on. So if that's what you're interested in, then stay tuned. The second key is that you need to invest the time.
What we're doing is we're developing a habit of investing time. We're getting more clever at self-publishing as we go. The combination of these two things together results in a huge win for you as an author.
Now you may ignore this and you may just quit which is okay if you feel you don't have the time to invest. But if you do have the time to invest and you want to feel the experience of getting major sales through your books, then this is exactly the path you're going to need to do.
Continuous improvement combined with an investment of time every day and you have a winning combination. That is the secret answer for today for the people who should not quit. Now, what I would like to know from you is should you quit at self-publishing?
Have you decided, have you considered quitting self-publishing? If you have considered quitting self-publishing, write "Yes" below in the comments. If you've never considered self-publishing, write "No" below in the comments.
Because I need to know how you are doing with your self-publishing and whether or not this is useful to you. And check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.