Are you trying to publish too soon?

Is it possible to publish too soon? Of course it is, and with the ease of KDP, it’s happening too often.

I’ve been monitoring various Facebook groups, and one of the questions that keeps coming up among new writers is “How do I get published?”

WHOA! Hold your horses!

Trying to get published before you’ve learned to write is like buying a guitar and then researching how to land a record deal before you’ve even played a chord.

You really need to take the time to learn your craft before you start worrying about putting it out there for public consumption.

Hop over to Youtube to watch the video version of this post, or keep reading if you prefer text!

Why would you spend so much time learning about publishing when you should be learning about craft?

publish too soon — Just enjoy writing as a process!

Writing isn’t easy, despite what many people may think. Just as watercolour painting has a range of techniques to learn, and any musical instrument requires practice, writing has stuff you simply have to learn too.

Think about;

Working with conflict
Structure
Dialogue
Believeable characters
Suspense
Short stories vs novels
Pacing

That’s before you even get anywhere near publishing and marketing! So why would you rush to stick your first novel on KDP, or send out your first story to a magazine before you’re sure you know what you’re doing?

It is scarily easy to try to publish too soon.

I did my first creative writing course back in 1999, but I didn’t start submitting stories to magazines until 2005. It took me until 2008 to get my first acceptance. In those intervening years, I took the time to improve what I was bad at.

I sought advice.

I devoured books on writing craft. I posted on forums.

I got better.

I wrote just for the sheer joy of writing, and I wrote to practice what I was learning.

When you aren’t thinking about getting published, you’re free to write whatever you want. You can mash up genres with merry abandon. You can write the stories you want to read. You don’t have to worry about what the market wants, or what an agent might be able to sell, or what’s doing well on Amazon at the moment.

Sure, you will need to think about getting published if you want to be a serious writer, and when you do, I have a post of 7 tips for submission success.

But in the meantime, spend time learning to write. Practice your craft. Don’t be in such a rush to publish too soon. KDP will still be there when you’ve nailed your first novel. Anthologies will still be taking submissions when you’ve workshopping your first short story.

And above all – enjoy your writing!