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5 Takeaways from “The Relaxed Author”

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by

kingmarine
in

“The Relaxed Author” by Joanna Penn and Leslie Lefebvre is about writers managing their writing lives. Life as an independently published author can be hectic. There are tasks such as writing, publishing, marketing, and social media that all contend with your time. 

The best way to succeed while keeping your mental health intact is to become a relaxed author. Becoming a relaxed author is not about becoming lazy or avoiding doing the above tasks. It is about keeping yourself balanced through the maze of authorship.

Not everyone is supposed to accomplish every task, every day. Some of us love responding to fans on social media; others love creating advertising on Facebook. The concept of the relaxed author is to focus on the tasks you’re best at and outsource or remove the functions that cause you to stress or anxiety. Let’s get into my five takeaways.

1) One step to becoming a relaxed author is writing at your own pace. Some writers can write at incredible speeds, while others write one book every four years. Know yourself, and write as much as you can while minimizing stress.

2) Writing what you love is a great way to stay relaxed. Specific genres like romance and mystery tend to get more sales; however, what if you don’t like writing these genres. Focus on what is sustainable over the long term.

3) Schedule time to write, produce and consume. You will have to replenish your “creative well” from time to time. This includes spending time with family or reading books from others. It is also a great idea to have a specific writing time because it is less stressful when you have time blocks for creativity. 

4) Understanding intellectual property will reduce stress over the long term. Controlling as much of your creative work can lead to more streams of revenue over time. Some different streams are audiobooks, foreign markets, formats, and collections.

5) Publishing “wide” may give you more opportunities and prevent you from putting all your “eggs” in one basket. By signing up to publish only on Amazon, you may limit yourself to depending on one company for all of your revenue.

Publishing wide is when authors publish to as many retailers and in as many formats as possible. The alternative is to publish ebooks only under Kindle Unlimited (KU). I used to publish only under Kindle Unlimited until I saw that I was giving up too much control of my operations. 

Currently, I publish many of my books and give them away for free on my website. Eventually, I want an even split between the number of books on KU and on my website. I feel great having control of at least half my collection at all times. 

Reading this book has helped me focus on my stronger attributes. I do not like the social media space or creating for YouTube, so I try to avoid those as much as possible. I love writing, creating artwork, and publishing books. This workflow gives me the most pleasure and satisfaction. So I will stick to it as long as I love the process.

If you are a new author or have lots of miles, this book can help you sort through your processes. Ultimately, the goal is to come to a point where you enjoy most of the things you do daily. What’s not to love about that lifestyle? I highly recommend this book to authors and future writers because understanding yourself is vital to becoming a relaxed author.

This link is to a physical product. The link above is to the digital book. Sorry. I get no credit for digital product links.

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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it.  I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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