How stressed are you about your writing?

To my surprise, I found my stress levels increasing after I had finished the first draft of my first book. I had expected my writing fears to be suppressed by the elation of finally getting somewhere and achieving a great milestone. When I began to see similar patterns in tweets and blog posts of other writers, I felt compelled to analyze writing stress, and so I posted a short survey. Thank you to the 16 people who responded. Here are the results:

1. What are your 3 highest stressors regarding your writing?

Finding time to write (9 responses)
Self-esteem – am I a good enough writer? (5)
Lack of marketing knowledge and experience (5)
Lack of time to market myself/book (4)
Marketing takes time away from writing (4)
Procrastination (3)
Editing (3)
Rejection from agents (3)
Amount of time and energy required for marketing, or dislike doing it (3)
Lack of support from family (2)
Battling being an unknown and unrepresented Indie author (2)
Creating a commercially viable book (2)
Staying current with technology (1)
Plot development (1)
I want to please everyone (1)

Depending on how you categorize these responses, 60% of stress relates to writing itself, and 40% to marketing. This is an interesting result, since I’m sure 5-10 years ago there would have been little to no concern about marketing. Now that primary marketing is left up to the author (for new and midlist anyway), and with the surge in Indie self-publishing, I expect the stresses of marketing will overtake those of writing. That makes sense: We all want to be writers, but few of us want to be marketers.

For the record, my stressors, not included in the results above:

Am I a good enough writer?
Lack of marketing knowledge and experience
Amount of time required to market

2. How confident are you about your writing and marketing ability, 1-10?

The graph below illustrates clearly that most of us are very confident (but not overly) about our writing ability, but much less sure about our ability to successfully market our books. Obviously, a sample size of 16 isn’t conclusive.

Here are some general comments made on the survey form:

“I feel less support from ‘industry professionals’ and more pressure to find good editors on my own, and I am more likely to do things myself or pay for help.”

Graeme: You obviously aren’t alone on this one. I must point out that as far as I know, none of my respondents were repped authors with a handful of books, whom I suspect are very happy with their agent and publishers. It’s a different world for new authors these days.

“For me, writing is a stress reliever. However, the lack of time drives me wacko! 99.9% of my writing stress relates to a lack of time.”

Graeme: Lack of time was the top answer on our survey. Heh, I’m making it sound like “Family Feud”. I’m certainly envious of writers, published or not, who can write full time.

“With all the demands places on aspiring writers to promote themselves before they’re picked up by the industry, how are we supposed to write AND support ourselves until we do find a publisher?”

“I love the freedom of indie writing, but let’s face it, it would be easier with a traditional publishing house.”

“I really wanted to go the agent route, it was everything I’d dreamed of, but after dozens of rejections I decided to self-publish. I traded the frustrations of rejection for the stresses of marketing. Time will tell if I made the right choice.”

“I am terrified that everyone will hate my book and it will get bad reviews on Amazon.”

“I worry that having chosen to self-publish, my family and friends will all think I caved and did “vanity publishing”.

Graeme: That seems a natural enough concern, and I’ve had many conversations with friends, writers or not, explaining what Indie really means and its pros and cons. In my experience, everyone understood why a writer would take that path. I was pleasantly surprised that no one thought it a cop out at all.

In conclusion, some of us find writing relaxing and others find it stressful, but I received no comments from anyone who enjoyed marketing. There is certainly a plethora of tweets and blog posts these days giving advice for stressed and worried writers, so you’re not alone – the human condition is to worry. Knowing that almost every other writer is in the same boat must make it easier. It's not just you. You're not going insane! Just remember why we do this, why we want to be published writers. And regularly thank your support group, be it friends, family or online author friends, for their advice, inspiration and encouragement.

Keep at it, and remember to de-stress. Breathe. Slow down. Take a walk. Step away from the keyboard and enjoy life. Don’t let stressors take your dream away.

Happy writing!

Leave a Comment:

7 comments

Michelle Griep says May 21, 2012

You seriously thought the stress would go away? Cue evil laughter!

Graeme says May 21, 2012

Heh, well I wasn’t that foolish, but I really did think that I had crossed a major threshold with a huge boost of confidence. Now I realize that I am just deeper in the rabbit hole.

Heather Day Gilbert says May 28, 2012

I’ve wondered about self-pubbing, too, but know I don’t want to throw that much of my life into marketing (though perhaps I already do that with the platform-building efforts…). I’m not too stressed about bad Amazon reviews, but then again, I don’t have a published book yet! I do think books are kind of subjective, and I appreciate an honest 2-3 star review to a glowing, fake, 5-star one. But I don’t understand marketing, so it might be the stroke of death to get too many 2-star reviews. And YES, there is a huge emphasis on getting that MS edited and well-nigh perfect BEFORE even querying it. Tough times.

Graeme says May 28, 2012

Hello Heather, your recent post about unplugging followed perfectly from my thoughts about remembering to slow down and step away from the keyboard. Hard to do, but glad you did it. I think you have a very sensible approach to reviews, but I’m sure it will hurt when we both (inevitably) get a 1-star review. Heh, can’t please everyone.

These are tough times for authors, but I’m sure they have been harder in the past. The internet is not just the cause of so many new authors getting involved and stressing about marketing, but is also the medium for a lot of advice and support. Old school writers never had that and we should be glad of it. No more, is writing a lonely profession.

victoria limbert says June 29, 2012

The only stress I have is not believing in myself, and constantly worrying about the standard of my writing. Right now, as a self-pub, I am enjoying the marketing side of things even though it takes up time. I have met some great people along the way and every good review I get is exciting! I don’t worry about a routine, or finding time to write…I do it as it comes to me and I guess that is a good thing about being your own boss, you can set your own deadlines. I think I would be more stressed if my publisher/agent wanted a certain about of books in a certain amound ot time.

Graeme says June 29, 2012

That’s a nice laid back attitude. Congratulations. I think all of us suffer from a lack of confidence, and it’s healthy in moderation to keep us on our toes (and preventing our heads growing too large). Having read your debut book, I think you should worry less. Of course now the concern turns to “can I do it again”.

victoria limbert says June 30, 2012

Exactly! lol…I hope so 🙂

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