I’m a Failure as an Author, but I Keep Writing
The brutal truth about my experience self-publishing.
Nowadays, it is easy for anyone to become an author. With sites like Lulu, Smashwords, Amazon (i.e., Kindle Direct Publishing), and several others, self-publishing is easier than ever. Like many writers, I fell for the promise of tremendous success and found out in the end that would likely not be the case. Unfortunately, also I discovered that I was writing for the wrong reasons, and I suffered at a high mental cost.
A lot of mental equity goes into writing a book. If you are exhausted after writing a few articles each week on Medium, I’ll let you know it’s a piece-of-cake compared to writing a book comprising of a couple of hundred pages or more.
In 2015, I was a geo-bachelor in the military, which meant that my husband worked one location while I was stationed in another. Needless to say, I had a lot of downtime until the next time I could see him. To occupy me, I took up writing. I had this great idea for a fantasy book, so I did what my high school English teacher inspired me to do: Put the idea on paper. Every day after work, I ate my dinner, did the dishes, and typed away until I got tired enough to get some shut-eye. Soon, I realized, “I think I have a book in my hands!”
After I got it to the point where I felt happy, I started researching how I would publish it. After weighing the pros and cons, I decided to go with the self-publishing route. I did everything that I thought I should help keep the costs down. I sought out beta-readers, designed my cover and interior, and promoted it on social media. In 2019, I picked a date, committed to it, and hit the “Publish” button after four years of keeping it on my hard drive.
In the first 72 hours, plenty of my friends and family on Facebook bought my book. However, that was it. To this day, I’m still waiting for a stranger to purchase it and leave me a review. To date, I have made $33.02 with The Queen’s Awakening: Retribution.
Here we are — two years later — , and I feel like a chump. The saddest part is that I still have 1–2 more follow-on books to help wrap up the story, and I don’t know if I even want to do it. However, it chips at my soul knowing that I have unfinished work out there.
Whether you self-publish or go with a major publisher, there are many mental costs of putting a book out to the world. Not to mention, it did a considerable amount of damage to my emotions after the release. Because I did not do an excellent job marketing my first book, I ended up feeling like a failed writer. After being on Medium for a short time, I have finally mustered up enough courage to crack open Book II of my series. Only recently have I started thinking, “maybe I don’t suck as a writer after all.”
I know the second book could fail too. That’s the burden and risk of being a self-published author, but I write because I want to. I have a story to tell, and either you like it, or you don’t. I have no regrets walking the path as a self-published author. The difference this time is that I am more aware of the high amount of mental equity and work it will take now to make this next one more successful.
My words may not be worth much weight to you because you do not know me, but if I could bestow my advice to you, it would come with the following sentiments:
- You’re not going to become rich as a self-published author.
- Be ready to be your own marketing.
- If you are not ready to hear some rejection, negative reviews, or disappointment, I suggest waiting to hit that “Publish” button. There will be people out there who won’t like your work. However, there will be people who will like it, so write for them.
If you find that you are in similar circumstances, I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Please, know that what I am saying is not to discourage you from becoming a self-published author. Instead, I hope I can help show the realization of what you are getting into so you can be more resilient than I was.
There is nothing worse than feeling like you have failed and the only one left to pick you up is you.
Interested in becoming a Medium member? Start your membership today to support other aspiring writers on Medium. You’ll also receive full access to all of my stories published and access to everything on Medium. Note: this is an affiliate link, and I will receive a portion of your membership fees.
