Writers and Creators: Perfect is the Enemy of Done

Whether you’re a writer, creator, or entrepreneur — it’s time to ship your work

You probably know someone just like this (maybe it’s you, it’s definitely me some days) — a person with big aspirations — the one with the great idea. These people research, plan, plot, think, and tweak. They have mounds of data and piles of good intentions. There’s a spark in their eyes — but the spark is distant. These folks have one fatal flaw that holds them down and prevents them from launching their work. They delay shipping, waiting for the moment when everything’s just right.

But just right never comes.

When we wait for perfect we wait the rest of our lives. Nothing is perfect. I’m sure as hell not perfect. I’ve delayed the release of a novel of three years — three years! I’ve got a following of a few thousand people waiting patiently, asking nicely, with arms outstretched — money in hand.

But the 10,000 pound hand presses-down on my shoulder, whispering “wait a little longer the book’s not perfect yet.” Someday I’ll ship this one. I’m gradually escaping the grip of this last hurdle.

It’s funny, I’ve learned to ship everything else, before I’m ready, but I’ve got this one, final novel that clings to my old habits of over-correcting and ever-tweaking. For some reason I can’t shake this final monster.

I used to be a chronic over-tweaker.

I had all these good idea, I’d research them to death, start building them, and couldn’t make them perfect. So, I’d stop. I wouldn’t ship. I waited for perfect and the projects died.

Waiting for perfect made me angry.

I’d listen to all these podcasts, watch videos, and read success stories of people who shipped before perfect, started much later than me, and now are very successful. I was tired of having nothing to show for my efforts.

If we don’t ship our work, it’s as if we haven’t created anything

All that effort is for naught if we don’t ship. Our fans don’t care about the piles of research, unfinished manuscripts, or endless design iterations. Our fans want the finished product in their hands. No product = no sale.

If you treat your audience well and did the foundation-work to build a relationship with them, they’ll be very forgiving if our first attempt comes off the press with a few scratches.

I’ve paid hundreds of dollars for courses that we’re so poorly-constructed it looked like my six-year-old cobbled them together. But the content was so valuable I didn’t care. And the course creator promised an updated, revamped version coming soon.

All I wanted was the valuable content. I didn’t care what the package looked like.

We accept situations like this every day, but we’re so hard on ourselves we fail to see our audience accepting the same of us. Think of your project like that old friend you haven’t called in six months. Eventually, three years passes. Then it’s too late to call — too much guilt for not calling sooner. You never call the friend again.

When you delay shipping your work becomes that old friend. Your brain will do everything it can to prevent you from making that phone call. Your product will stay on the shelf forever, because your mind has hard-wired itself to avoid the pain of shipping.

It’s science. It’s not your fault. But it’s your job to do something about it.

The Proof is in the Perseverance

Successful creators have buckets of perseverance. No one who’s done anything great had an easy time doing so.

The key to success is to ship — even if we’re scared — even if we’re not ready

When we ship we give ourselves permission to grow. We put our best work in the box, close the flaps, and present it to our customers. The work doesn’t exist until it ships.

As creators one of the hardest parts of the process is the delivery. To an over-weaker delivery might feel like giving up. There’s always something more to do. One more adjustment or edit and you’re work will be perfect.

Perfect never comes.

We’ve got to see through the perfect lens and persevere all the way to the proverbial mailbox.

Our work doesn’t end once our project sits in the customer’s hands. Our work has just begun. We have a choice. We can wait for a day that will never come, or we take a chance that we’ll send something amazing into the world — something our audience will love.

We persevere. We ship. We start work on the next project.

Good enough is good enough

We can’t ship inferior. We can’t ship garbage. We can’t ship a product to a group of customers who don’t want what we made. However, once the basics of a solid business model are covered, most of the grey area around our product’s release is little more than a mental trick we play on ourselves.

What we can do is ship once our creation is good enough.

We’ve built our platform. We have a community. We’ve got a tiny army of people with their hands raised, saying “I like what you’ve got, I’m ready to buy it.”

Your core group of die-hard fans are the most-forgiving. They’re sold on your cause. They drank the Kool-Aid. They like you for you, warts and all. You’re going to make mistakes — ship work less than perfect. This is part of the process.

The way you learn from and correct for your mistakes, is what makes or breaks you as a successful creator and craftsperson

Launch early

Ship before you’re ready. Package that novel. Deliver that software. Ship that gadget. Open that course. Get your work out the door before you have a chance to drag it back into your cave and beat the life out of it.

When you adopt and launch early mindset, your work pace increases — keeping you too busy to worry about minutia.

Remember, when we wait for perfect we wait forever

An early-launch mindset puts you in employee mode. This time you’re working for yourself. You’ve got to hit the deadline or your boss will be pissed. If you don’t ship you’ll miss the Christmas bonus.

I can tell you from personal experience the relief, pride, and joy of shipping early is much better than the shame and self-punishment of keeping that project on the shelf until it’s too late.

Launch early. Learn from your mistakes. Start the next project and ship that early too.

Sell it pre-release

Pre-release is a great way to force yourself to launch a product. Writers do this all the time. Your customers will pay you for something that doesn’t exist yet. How much more incentive do you need?

I know many authors who use a pre-release model to force themselves into finishing their books.

Not only do you get validation for your work (sales before you’re finished), but you also get an instant sales boost the day you ship your work. Pre-release works for any product, not just books.

Pre-release will save you a lot of time. If you launch a pre-release and no one signs up or buys it, then you don’t have to waste the time making it. Your customers’ wallets are the ultimate vote. Nothing else matters as much.

Launch at a deep discount

Here’s a daring move — ship your product before it’s good enough. Tell your audience that you’ll give them a huge discount (like 75% off) if they’re willing to take delivery of your almost-good-enough product, provided they give you feedback on how to make it better.

Tell these early adopters you’ll give them the full, 1.0 version once you get all the bugs out. The good enough version will be full price for the rest of the world.

Shipping early is gamble. Not everyone will be pleased with what they receive. If you ship work that’s too raw you’ll hurt your business.

This strategy may be exactly what you need to force yourself into business.

You can’t ship garbage. You shouldn’t ship a placeholder. But you can ship pretty close and ship it early. There are early adopters in every crowd and they love the bragging rights of being the first ones to get their hot-little-mitts on your work before the common-folk get the polished version.

Set a hard deadline

Even self-imposed deadlines can be enough to get your product out the door. I mentioned the novel that’s plaguing me.

To combat the tough novel I wrote an entirely different novel (on my phone) and shipped it before I finished the first one. I had to break the cycle. I set a hard deadline for myself. I didn’t tell anyone else. I didn’t pre-launch, or pre-release in case something went wrong.

When you set a self-imposed deadline it gives you more flexibility, but these deadlines are also the easiest to break.

This goes back to perseverance. Either you can set a public deadline and have your audience shove you over the finish line, or you set a personal deadline and power-through that bad boy with sheer willpower and excitement.

Stop waiting for perfect

You’re product is done. You’re too close to your work to recognize this, but it’s ready. We need what you’ve got to offer. We want to read your book. We want to try your app. We need your course, your painting, or your service.

We don’t care how long it took you to make it. We want you to ship. We don’t care if this angle needs to be adjusted by five degrees, or this chapter is five words too long.

Yes, we want you to focus and improve your craft as you progress. We expect the highest level of integrity too. But we won’t wait for perfect. We’ll choose someone else who was brave enough to ship.

We’ll only wait so long — then you’ll lose out attention.

Stop waiting for perfect.

We want what you’ve got.

We’re waiting for you.

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August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. A self-proclaimed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indie authors how to write books that sell and how to sell more of those books once they’re written. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.

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