#PublishingReinvented 275 A New Preface for Our Mindset Cure Guide!
Following on from detailed feedback from readers of our new mindset book - thank you all - we are busy rewriting the whole book with more detail and another new chapter and a new preface, which we hope provides a more personal introduction to what we are doing with this guide, and why.
Your feedback on this will be appreciated too! Please comment below or email me: laurence@bgsadmin.com
The new workbook will have lots more details for many of the concepts and places for us to fill in replies to related questions about our work.
Are we going in the right direction? I hope so!
New Preface
My motivation for writing this was sparked by two things, a personal hesitation in starting a new book and the research I did which uncovered a wealth of new tactics to help us human writers to focus on writing.
I floundered without motivation through the early months of 2025.
My previous steady focus on writing daily had been undermined by poor sales on a series I spent three years working on. I’d poured a lot of energy, time and money into the series, it got good reader reviews, but it just wasn’t selling well enough.
That may change in the future as public interest in what I was writing about changes.
Now I have some distance from that episode I see things differently, less emotionally.
Writing is not just about success. It is something I have to do, the thing that gives me purpose.
What happened to me is not uncommon. I am well aware that deep research in a genre, coupled with writing well in that genre and streteching the genre, can be the route to commercial success, but I keep writing what I want to write, perhaps with a nod or two to the conventions of the genre, but not embracing them.
There are plenty of guides to doing that, writing to market, which you can find online if that’s the route you want to go, but this is not that book.
This guide is intended for people who have an idea, like I have, and want to learn the new psychology of pushing ourselves to write more.
It took me three months of vaciliting over what to write next to decide on what genre I should switch to. Two historical fiction series on the shelf left me in need of a different genre.
I considered psychological thrillers, even started one, and I considered bringing in romance into it, but I just can’t write what I don’t read and I don’t enjoy.
I rediscovered all that after reading part way through some top selling books in the above genres.
So why did I pick scifi? First, I loved the genre when I was a teenager and in my twenties. I read all the greats. I also follow scifi movies and TV series religiously. And I’ve written and self published a novela in the genre.
And I have a friend who has done very well in scifi who might help me.
I started researching too, listening to science, physics and astronomy podcasts and doing other things I won’t bore you with. I find my early interest in these subjects has reemerged. It is a joy to find that these subjects transport me from daily concerns into another world and provide ideas for the new book I am working on.
I also found a plot idea researching famous novelists. The novel that inspired me is a classical Chinese novel. Journey to the West. I see echoes of the Fantastic Four and Guardians of the Galaxy in this and it gives me a challenge too.
How can I reimagine this revered novel?
Perhaps you will find that an early interest of yours can be reawakened to bring you joy and ideas and to help you with your mindset.
For now, please consider the following as a review of the psychological tools which have been developed to help us do the actual work of writing.
I hope you find this book of benefit.
Author and Book Marketing Person.
#PublishingReinvented is the Book Marketing Substack you’ve been looking for.
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Your candor reminds me that we writers may at times can be our own worse friend. In your essay, and from discussing similar pauses in our writing with other authors, I determined that at times we need a break, and maybe that is what our invisible angels are telling us. I'm cleaning out closets. Someone else may be baking a cake for a friend. And, some, are reading a book from that stack sitting on their bedside table. Don't be so hard on yourself. Celebrate all you have already done.