How to completely control your writing career
The illusion of control
If there’s one thing about writers, it’s that we love to tell stories.
If there’s another thing about writers . . . it’s that most of us are desperate to have some kind of control over our careers. Or at least feel like we have control.
I’ll be honest: I’m no exception. Let me tell you how I deal with it.
From the moment we decide we want to be published by a traditional publishing house, most of us start looking for some kind of Magic Get Published Button. (The button does not exist.) We’re looking at what other writers ahead of us are doing—what seems to be working, how we can do it too, and reading between the lines of form rejections for clues. We follow the agents and editors on social media, willing them — with nothing but the power of our minds — to look at our manuscript next, trying to figure out exactly what kind of stories they like so that can be the next project if they say no to this one.
With all the people who have to say yes to a book, the path to publication seems like it’s completely out of our control.
Strangely, once we do get a contract, control seems even farther away. There are so many things that have to go right for your book to even make it onto bookstore shelves these days. And if you’re not your publisher’s Chosen One, getting readers to hear about your book can look impossible.
So it’s back to social media, trying to amass followers, learning the algorithm, networking, paying your own way to festivals, making friends with booksellers and librarians, buying swag, doing preorder campaigns, building street teams, and again spending hours and hours on social media. There’s a weird sense of FOMO — like if you don’t do all the things, you will always wonder if you are the reason your book did not break out.
Authors, this is not on you.
You cannot control whether your book becomes an overnight bestseller.
A social media post promoting your book is not going to make or break your career.
Look, I know it’s tempting to think you can do it. I know you see authors out there selling those books on TikTok. I see them too. And you know what? Good for them. They got on the platform at the right time. Or they had a leg up because of connections. Or they just have the right personality for it and the users of that platform responded overwhelmingly.
Honestly, good for those authors.
But they are the exceptions. Most of us are not able to do what they do — for a variety of completely legitimate reasons.1
For most authors, spending a full workweek on social media every week is not going to make a difference. At best, it might grab a few sales you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, but is your return on that time investment actually worth it?2 Are you selling enough books — and can you actually trace those sales back to your social media efforts — to really warrant all that effort? Is it worth the burnout?3
If you aren’t seeing results and you’re not enjoying the experience, I hereby grant you permission to do less. Or stop entirely, if you prefer.
I know some of you are hearing from your publishers — and even your author friends — to get on TikTok or whatever Twitter clone came out this week. Get a huge following. Post like your career depends on it. Have an opinion on everything, but don’t be controversial. Get your content buckets and and post about all those things on a schedule. For the algo, you know? Self-promotion is just part of the job.
But I think we all realize, on some level, that it’s not going to make a difference for most of us. I think publishers know it, too, frankly, but it’s something they can tell us to do. It gives you the illusion of control, after all.
Okay, so how does one deal with all this?
The first thing I do is understand that while many things are out of my control, there is always one thing I can do.
I can write another book. I can write a better book.
If, at any point, I feel like there is nothing I can do to affect my career — well I can do that.
The book is the one thing I have absolute control over.
That was what I focused on before I got published — identifying my weaknesses and working to improve them — and it’s still what I do now, over a decade into my career. I am always, always trying to write a better book than my last one.
Okay great. Write another book. But what else? What if you have books already out and want to get readers to notice them?
I get that. I sometimes find myself with this little flare of panic that I should be doing something for those books. So here’s what I’ve done:
Instead of having a thousand social media accounts I work to update at all hours, I chose two primary communication outlets — my newsletter as my main, because I can take all of you with me if I need to go to another platform one day, and Instagram as my secondary/discoverability platform, because I have a decent following there and the algorithm generally does fine for me.
In case you missed it, here’s the post where I talked about my social media strategy.
I have two main phases of self promotion: maintaining year-round author visibility and active book release.
Here’s my personal maintenance phase. (Yours might be something different, if you decide you want to adopt a similar routine.)
You already know what I do with my newsletter if you’re a subscriber (ty ily!), but my Instagram plan is pretty simple, one that — now, after some up-front time and effort — I can do pretty quickly any time I have that nervous squeeze about the state of my career.4
I am on other platforms, but I engage only when I want. While posting and reminding people that I have books they could be reading does give me a feeling of control — and because I personally view it as part of my job, a part I am willing to do some of the time — social media does not pay me. It doesn’t make me a better writer. And its effectiveness at selling books is inconsistent. Not to mention, I have other things I want to spend my free time doing.
And what about forthcoming books/new releases?
For most traditionally published authors, those happen once a year. (Or slightly more, or slightly less, but generally not all the time. Here’s writing at the speed of publishing.) It’s worth celebrating!
It’s tempting to do all the things when a new book is coming out: street team, mailings, giveaways, more social media, tours, interviews, guest post, swag, preorder promotions, festivals. . . . But this is also an area I’d suggest choosing one or two things. Because going all out on your book release won’t just cost you lots of time, but tons of money, too.5
After trying several different new-release strategies (strategies might be too strong a word . . .) over the years, I’ve narrowed down what I am willing to do on my own to a few things I know will have a positive effect on book sales. I put my effort into those items and don’t worry about the rest.
Because really, I will never be able to accomplish what my publisher can accomplish. And it’s not fair to myself to compare my efforts vs. theirs.
Do any of those things I do actually sell books? Yes! That’s why I chose those specific things as my maintenance and book-release phases. Additionally, I’ve had some very lucky breaks with larger platforms deciding to help me promote preorder giveaways (tysm!) and sometimes videos going a little viral.6 So any time I feel like I should be doing more for my career, I choose one of my established promotion tasks to make myself feel better. I remind myself that I have done what I am capable of doing.
What you decide to do is completely up to you. It might involve some trial and error. And it probably will change over time. Social media is always shifting. The types of marketing readers respond to evolves. And what you find yourself wanting to spend time on is going to depend how you’re feeling, what kind of book you’re working on, and what you have time for.
Remember, I’m not telling you anything that you have to do.7 I want you to figure out what works for you, do that when you feel like you need to, and spend the rest of your time writing your next book.
Because that is the main thing you can control. And writing books is your actual job.
There’s one more thing I should mention before I let you go.
Sometimes (ahem, a lot of the time) the answer isn’t to do something for work, but something for yourself.
What that is is totally up to you, but for me, getting control over my environment helps. That often means tidying or moving things around just slightly (even though I will probably walk into any moved furniture for the next month). I like to put things in boxes, list things, make plans. Maybe you like to take walks or build something. Remember my get a hobby post? Your hobby is a good place to start when you need to do something for yourself.
And while we’re talking about what you can do for yourself, it’s probably a good idea to make note of what is happening when the feeling comes on. Were you just looking at Goodreads again? Checking your Amazon ranking? Comparing your real life to another author’s highlight reel?
Yeah.
I mean, I’m not the boss of you, but it’s probably wise to be aware of where you are/what you’re doing when those feelings of powerlessness appear. Check your ranking if you want, but if it starts to affect the way you feel — and prevents you from writing the next thing — it might be a good idea to reconsider how often you do that.
Okay, that’s it for now. This turned out to be a much longer post than I expected, and I have to get back MY SALTY MARY!8
But while I’m working on that, I have a question for you:
What do you do to help with the need for control? How do you cope? Or is it even an issue for you? (If you do not have this problem, please teach me your ways!)
One of those reasons is that social media companies have no motive to make it work for everyone all the time. Give this article a read if you’re interested in the life cycles of social media: The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok
Let’s not forget learning the skills you have to develop! Many of us aren’t just naturally good performers, video editors, and photographers — in addition to being writers!
Most people who are extremely online and regularly creating lots of content tend to get burned out, even when they have a great support system helping them manage everything. And, uh, most authors just have ourselves doing all the work.
For me, it’s reels. Enough people tell me they bought my books, or borrowed them from the library, as a direct result of those reels, that it’s worth it for me to keep doing. When that stops working, I’ll make a new plan.
I think sometimes authors — particularly debuts — want to go all out because it’s their first book, and to that I say: go for it, if you can. And remember that you’re doing it as a celebration for yourself and your book, whether or not it has an effect on sales. Go back and read “do I really want to publish my books?”
Obviously this cannot be counted on, but it has happened and it has sold some books. And it has also hiked up the number of pirated copies, so . . . sigh.
If you don’t want to do even some of the things, let alone all of the things, then don’t. Seriously. Don’t force yourself.
That one’s not up for preorder yet but I have plenty of other books you can check out in the meantime!
Good reminder this morning as I spin out about "how the heck am I ever going to find readers". Need to write the danged book(s) first.
You had me at the cat pictures. ❤️😸