Creative Expression Cannot Be Constrained

Writing is no easy task. And while it might seem that everyone around you has an idea for that novel they always wanted to write and publish, the reality is that very few will actually see it through to the end. Writing that first novel is an arduous, painstaking process. Very few go all the way publishing their novel, let alone make a living from their writing.

Like many others, I, too, had the dream of writing a best-seller novel. And until 2015, that’s all it had been — a dream. But in 2015, everything changed. I discovered (albeit a few years late) Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform, and I realized that technology had made it possible for anyone to publish their book on a global marketplace. It was exhilarating to consider the possibilities. I started doing research and found authors publishing their fiction on KDP and earning high incomes. I imagined doing the same. The idea became crystallized in my mind, and so I went all-in and for the next five years, I pursued this one goal. I devoured everything I could get my hands on that had to do with being an Indie Author, both from the business and craft aspects.

Learning Mode

That first year felt like I was drinking from a firehose. There was so much to learn and so much to catch up on. Technology had now made my childhood dream achievable. I was excited and thrilled. I bought courses, attended webinars, read books, and followed every piece of actionable advice I came across in writing blogs, tutorials and videos.

And, sure enough, I started to make progress. Slowly, my creations came together. Book covers. Blurbs. Titles. Pseudonyms. Plots. Outlines. Ad copy. I learned about formatting for print and electronic books. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about different file formats like ePub and mobi. I spent hours adjusting margins for the print version of my book. I joined writers groups on Facebook.

And as a result, I eventually published my novels and stories. I had accomplished my goal.

But, as I very quickly discovered, it’s one thing to write a story, and quite another to market it. I stumbled around a lot trying to figure out ways to get visibility for my novel. I tried paid ads, word of mouth advertising, posting on forums and social media, newsletter swaps, email lists, and content marketing. The results were lukewarm. Even though I had done everything right, I had still lost. I felt devastated.

Powering Through The Disappointment

Not wanting to give up so easily, I decided to re-double my efforts. I sought advice from seasoned authors on what to do. The feedback I received varied:

“Write another book.”

“Write a series.”

“Get more reviews on Amazon.”

“Build a mailing list.”

“Create a lead magnet.”

“Do a giveaway of some free content.”

“Write to market.”

The common refrain seemed to be “Keep Writing.” So I did. Pushing myself through my disappointment of the financial flop of the first novel, I managed to crank out another novel, this one was to be the first in a series. But this was an even worse flop than the first one.

I felt myself losing what it meant for me to be a writer. Frantically checking the KDP dashboard for new sales, desperately hoping that the newsletter readers would purchase something, and feeling under so much pressure to write something that would be appealing enough to audiences. This was not the dream of my childhood, when I would write for the sheer enjoyment of it. Back then it was bliss, now it had become torture.

Giving Up and Letting Go

In 2020, I decided that I had had enough disappointment and that it was not worth the pain and suffering if nobody was going to read my fiction. And I threw in the towel.

And I forgot all about writing fiction for a while.

But then, a curious thing happened. One day, out of the blue, I happened to remember my KDP account and on a whim I decided to log in. Out of curiosity, I looked at the sales dashboard and to my surprise I saw that there had been a steady trickle of sales happening during this whole time. What surprised me even more was that this was all organic, with no additional effort from me. I hadn’t done any marketing or ads. I had deleted my Facebook author page and had even let my author website domain expire. Here is what it looked like for the best performing book:

And for all the books combined:

KDP also has another metric, “KENP (Kindle Edition Normalized Pages) Read”, which is a measure of the number of pages read by customers who subscribed to Kindle Unlimited. This one had a similar pattern, showing a tapering off followed by a steady stream of readers:

It was an interesting surprise. I had completely expected the books and short stories to sink into the abyss of forgotten works after I had stopped actively promoting them. What I realized was that it takes time (sometimes a long time), for creative work to be established. I had been in too much of a hurry. And in my rush to achieve my dream, to reach my goals, I had lost sight of two very important things: The joy that writing brings me as an expression of my creative self, and my purpose in writing. I had gotten sidetracked by focusing too much on the financial aspects of the project.

The hard lesson I learned was that by making the financial aspect my metric of success, I had set myself up for failure. And I had lost sight of my true purpose, of why I write. When I realized that, I remembered how I had felt when I had started writing as a child. For me, it was a creative outlet, an expression of my self, and a means to connect with and inspire, educate and enlighten others.

Renewal

When I reconnected with my true purpose for writing, and I recalibrated my metric for success, I was able to return to writing without the heavy burdens that had weighed me down before. And I was free once again to write with joy. I remember going back through some of the emails that readers had sent me, and reading them again as if for the first time.

Any form of creative expression cannot be constrained. It must flow freely for it to blossom and flourish into its full potential. Allow yourself this freedom, give yourself this gift, and you will be in awe of what you create.

If you’d like to follow me on this new journey as I document what I learn, you can follow me on twitter.