pre book launch hustle

the pre-publishing storm before the book launch calm

Lately, I’ve been posting about how much I’m working on my book Multidimensional in my Instagram stories. I post about when I work a full day at my day job and then I work into the night after I get home.

Some days of the week, I’m at my side job from 7:30am to 6pm, then I take a little break for dinner and get right back into book work until usually 10 or 11pm. Sometimes it’s midnight if I’m really in the zone (or when I was too stubborn to walk away when the formatting stage was kicking my ass). Then on my days off, I spend my time working on the book (or designs and illustrations for clients) pretty much all day.

Now, I don’t want the assumption to be that I’m promoting hustle culture and that I believe this type of work schedule is sustainable. Because I’m not and I don’t.

As an author who is self-publishing, this is what the few months leading up to launch day look like for me! And the reason I post about what my day to day is like is so you can get a better look at what my life is like when I’m publishing a book and the work that goes into it, while also working a part time job. Us self-published authors may look like we have it easy from the outside, but when you see what’s really going on behind the scenes, you’ll see how much work we do and how we really pour ourselves into the work we love.

pre-publishing tasks that happen in the months prior to release

• Formatting the official document so it’ll lay out correctly when printed

• Multiple rounds of edits, aka rereading the document over and over again

• Designing the cover, which I have decided to design and create myself

• Writing all matter of additional text for the book, which includes my author bio, the back cover synopsis, an author note, acknowledgements, dedication, copyright page, amazon description text, etc

• Creating social media content and planning promotional posts/activities

• Adding a landing page for the book on my websites

• Other small but necessary tasks like coming up with keywords, genre placement, registering an isbn, creating a barcode, deciding on pricing, ordering additional proof copies to see if formatting, text, and cover changes look right, and so on

So, self-published authors have a lot of work to do, even if they outsource certain aspects. And many of them work full time jobs on top of this.

My part time job is labor intensive (I work on cars, changing oil, performing tire rotations, completing general inspections, replacing tires, etc) so when I come home from a long day, my body is tired and my mind is usually fixed on which step I need to complete next for my upcoming book. So when I sit on the couch, my body is like finallyyyy, and I grab my laptop and get some work done until it’s time for bed.

Lately I have been feeling like I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. The constant stream of work (and we haven’t even factored in chores and cleaning around the apartment) has been exhausting.

here’s what I’m doing to not hustle myself to death

• I take breaks when I need them

In the past couple months alone, I got sick for a week. I also had a burnout period where I couldn’t get myself to work on any of my projects. I needed to couch rot for a while, so I did. The tricky thing is that even fun work like this can be mentally taxing. But it can be harder to see it coming because it’s so easy to spend a lot of time on your fun work. And sometimes, I just need a night off. As someone who is not a morning person who is forced to get up for work within the 6 o’clock hour, sometimes I am too beat after a full day to work when I’m home in the evening, and I relax instead.

• This goes along with the previous, but I also built in “buffer time” when I decided on my publish date (April 27, btw!!)

Shit happens—as it always does—and I had time built into my schedule to be sick and useless. To be in a funk where I couldn’t work. To take a night off here and there. And even though I lost roughly two weeks to those (and a couple days to birthday festivities too), I still feel I’m on track to publish on my decided-on date.

• I’ve also decided to take May off

I’m going to take a break after publishing for the entire month of May. Aside from wanting to plan a launch party for the book, I don’t want to do anything. I’m going to watch movies on the couch. I’m going to read a bunch. I’m going to ride my motorcycle. I’m going to celebrate my second book with my friends and family. Any project I work on will purely be for fun or if I’m overcome by inspiration. But NO DEADLINES.

• Treat yoself

Oh, and of course, I’m sprinkling a good amount of treats in there. After all, if you’re working hard and putting in the time to make your dreams come true, you deserve many treats.

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Moral of the story, I didn’t want it to seem as though I am promoting hustle culture. I want to make it clear that these few months feel like that, but are in no way how I want to live my life constantly. That’s just pre-launch stuff, baby. And I am absolutely thrilled to put this book out. It’s so close to publishing now, I can taste it!

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reporting live from the pre-launch zone,

Natalie