Piper Nuelle

I always haunt online forums and author groups on social media, and I love to read and engage in discussions that they all have about certain topics. And one topic that comes up a lot is – What is the hardest thing about writing and being an author. And when reading through the comments of what other people put, its fun to see how different everyone else’s experiences are and what things people find difficult compared to other people.

So I decided to compile a list (Because who doesn’t love a good list right?) of all what people find difficult about writing and being an author;

• Scammers – It seems to be that no matter what niche you work in there is always a scammer hoping and waiting to pounce and to steal the hard work you have done. Scammers in the writing world can be many things and have many faces, such as; The rouge editor that says they will edit your work for a fee, take the money and never glance once at your manuscript, the plagiariser who reads you story and then copies it word for word and puts it in their own book to sell, people DM’ing you on your socials asking for you to send them your book to review but then never reviewing it, they just wanted a free book or money to ‘showcase it’ on their socials! There are so many scammers out there, it is hard to navigate the writing world and stay safe, protect your work but also have fun and make money.
• The Writing – Writers and Authors love writing but sometimes that too can become hard. Maybe its the juggling family life and work with the time to write your book, or a chronic illness that may flare up and leave you in bed for days at a time preventing you from writing. Or maybe its having so many ideas in your head that you struggle to decide which one to focus on first!
• When you add in a character based on a friend or family member because they asked you too and pestered you, but then they never bother to read the book, even when you print it out and give it to them for FREE!!! Unfortunately family and friends are not always our biggest cheerleaders.
• Friends or family wanting you to help them write their book and publish it, but they never supported you when you wrote and published / self-published yours. Unfortunately people seem to think that they are entitled to your help, and that if you have done something, they too can also do it.
• Marketing – This is hard for any author and or writer, but more so when you Self-Publish because you have no team behind you to help you drive sales and or promote your book and you. Any events you have to set up and manage yourself, any deals and book promotions are all run and created by you. You want your book to be in a shop, it is you that needs to make contacts and try to make a deal.
• Getting reviews – This is so hard, to sell a book you need reviews, but to get and have reviews you need to sell your book. It would be nice to have a circle of family and friends that support you and will buy and review your book on say the likes of Amazon, but not everyone has a support network. Thus it makes getting reviews even harder!!!
• Competing against AI – AI is a rather new competitor in the book market, and what is frustrating is that some lazy authors are using it to write their books for them. Which means they can get an idea and ‘Write’ the book in record time, edit or not edit and then release the book. It makes it harder for the ‘actual real writer and author’, who put real, blood, sweat and tears into their work and spend months if not years on their manuscripts. Plus, AI is giving some books and genre’s bad names, because the work is not always great and then people assume a lot of books are then AI. Then there is the whole debate on AI covers and AI editing!!! To me AI should be helping me with my chores, not doing the creative arts I want to do and leaving me to do more chores!!!
• Finding an agent and or publisher if you don’t want to self-publish. Not everyone want’s to self-publish their books, some people want to go old school and go traditional. But it has become so increasingly hard now a days to get a publisher and or an agent due to company cut backs, whether you are already a celeb and can make them easy money, if you already have a good social media following, or if the book and or story is an easy one to sell.
• Writers Block – When you hit that damned wall and no words come to mind. When you just stare at the blank page, you want to write but don’t know what. It’s hard and sometimes you just need to take a break, take a nice walk, or have a cuppa tea, read another book, or use a writing prompt to get the juices flowing again in your minds pen.
• Getting sales and royalties – Getting sales is damn hard in this economic climate. No one wants to take a chance on an unknown author, they also want everything for free!!! Which makes it hard for a writer who want’s to use their writing and their books as a job and a source of income. But many authors still have to maintain a day job to keep the money coming in.
• Selling in multiple formats such as Kindle, eBook, Paperback and Hardcover. It’s damned hard formatting a book for one format, let alone three different versions, but it is the only way to gain more traction and find more readers. Some only read eBooks via the Kindle and like the ones that are free or cheap to buy, others only like Hardcovers that could be collectables, others can only read paperback due to health conditions and holding heavy hardbacks or a kindle may be too much.
• Time – Writing is time consuming, editing is time consuming, proofing is time consuming, finding Beta readers is time consuming, marketing is time consuming, everything with writing and being an author is time consuming.
• Having patience – You book is in a large ocean of other books, all competing to be seen and purchased and read. You need to keep at it with the promoting, you need to sell it and sell it hard, you need to have patience and wait, one day it will gain traction and you will sell.
• Remembering to be grateful for even the small things such as; that one sale of the week, the small royalty, the one lone review, all these things are small but are the growing foundations.
• To keep writing – You always think that once you publish a book you have made it, but in reality you need to keep writing new books. The more books you have the more chance you have at getting noticed and people finding your books.
• Social media – Social media can be scary especially if you are not of this modern TikTok generation! It’s hard to try and make cool and exciting posts, it’s hard to generate likes and shares on a platform that caters to schools girls dancing and doing makeup tutorials.
• People offering online tutorials and webinars that are meant to help you understand the world of publishing, writing and marketing, but it is just recycled things that are already known online and naff quality ideas that unless you have money or a supporting circle around you they won’t work anyway.

The list could probably go on even more, but I think we have hit the nail on the head with these examples. These are all things that make writing and being an author hard. But one thing to remember is – To succeed you need drive, hope and patience.

Drive – To keep going and pushing yourself to continue. To keep that passion for writing ignited and to never give up on your book or your dreams.

Hope – To keep hoping that one day, someone will read your book, love it and spread the word and eventually that word of mouth will be just what your book needs to be seen, loved and shared.

Patience – All good things come to those that wait… Keep writing, be patient and one day when you least expect it, something good will happen. Big or small. And remember to not discount all the small good things.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and it has helped you see into the world of being a writer / author.

Take care, xo Piper xo