What’s your point?
Having put many, many, many hours into creating and publishing my series of e-books for Amazon Kindle, I’ve experienced my share of ups, downs, triumphs, and screw-ups.
I realize that this particular journey is just beginning, and I’m trusting that, as I continue it, I’ll be able to apply the lessons learned so far to make the rest of the journey easier. I hope they can do the same for you.
Lesson #1: Know what you want a particular project to accomplish.
When I asked myself why I was willing to venture into the completely foreign territory of online self-publishing, I realized this was actually a multi-part question with multiple answers.
Do I want to earn money from book sales? Yes.
Do I intend the books to serve as a marketing tool for my consulting and speaking services? Yes.
Do I see them as a way of reaching a wider audience as I seek to create AHA! moments for women? Yes.
This process led to another realization: The more compelling reasons you have for wanting to accomplish something, the more energy you’ll have for powering through the inevitable obstacles.
Lesson #2: Don’t scare yourself out of taking action just because you don’t know what the hell you’re doing or how you’re doing it.
I don’t own a Kindle, nor am I likely to buy one until my next big overseas vacation. While I see the value of saving space by taking a small electronic device on a long airplane trip, I much prefer the feel of a physical book when I’m reading at home. (Do not ask me whether I dog-ear the pages.)
So, as a Kindle virgin, it would have been easy for me to shy completely away from anything to do with this technology. Unfortunately, that would have also meant turning my back on the opportunity to accomplish some really cool goals. (See Lesson #1.)
So, as I took a deep breath and prepared to launch this project, I called on one of my most valuable tools: When in doubt where to start, just do something.
In the case of turning myself into a writer of Kindle books, one of the first things I did was go on Amazon and simply scope out the Kindle store. That promptly led to a massive case of overwhelmed “Oh. My. Gosh. There’s so much to figure out here.” Fortunately, I was able to breathe and remind myself that it was fair to first decide how I would organize my content, then figure out how to categorize the books on Amazon. Later, I realized I had inadvertently applied Lesson #3.
Lesson #3: Don’t try to do everything at once.
Learning the intricacies of Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon keywords, and category strings before I had even assessed the content that would eventually end up in the books would have been a case of putting the cart way before the horse.
Instead of stressing myself out – maybe even to the point of quitting – I calmed myself down by allowing myself to take this complex process just one step at a time.
While I didn’t get the order of my baby steps exactly right in all cases, I did an effective enough job to keep myself sane, stay in motion, and ultimately triumph over my own ignorance and the foibles of technology.
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As you might guess, a months-long project produced a lot more than these few lessons. Stay tuned for the rest in coming posts.
And, if you haven’t yet checked out the fruits of my applying these and other lessons, please feel free to “page” through the finished books; you can easily do that here.
(BTW, thanks to GotCredit.com for posting this image on Flickr.)
This entry was posted in success factors.
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