It was October 2014 that I finally sat down to write my first book for Biz Women Rock.  The podcast and the community had been alive for 8 months and there was definitely information to share…and a thriving base of loyal followers to share it with.

 

So, one relaxing Saturday afternoon, I parked under a shady tree by the water, flipped open my laptop and began to write.

 

By sundown, I was 80% done with the book.

 

A few weeks later, I repeated the process and had it finished completely.

 

For the months prior, I had built up the “writing process” so big in my head that I had been a little fearful to start.  Truthfully, I was dreading it, putting it off multiple times.  I’m going to have to completely block out my schedule for weeks!  What if I’m not in a “creative mood?”  How can I ever balance writing a book and running my business?

 

It was a giant project.  HUGE!

 

So, when a total of two days had been spent completing the book, I was astonished by just how hard I worked on creating those mental blocks and giving them energy instead of the book energy!

 

When we remove all the excuses, the fears, the thousands of little things that we have worked up in our mind about a project…and just do the project, it’s amazing how quickly and well it gets done!

 

 

Writing the book was one thing, but now it was time to publish.  The mind-blowing lesson I had just learned obviously didn’t have too much time to stick as I quickly came up with questions, excuses and mountains of “issues” I needed to work through to actually get it done.

 

Do I want to publish on Amazon Kindle or Apple?

 

Should I make it a physical book or ebook?

 

How do I format it correctly?  Now I have to learn how to do the formatting…sheesh!

 

How am I going to market it?  How do I know what categories to chose so it’ll go to #1 bestseller?  Am I doomed if it doesn’t become a bestseller?  How much should it cost?

 

You get the picture.

 

I let this avalanche of questions and worries completely derail my book project…for 8 more months!!!

 

You read that right.  EIGHT FREAKING MONTHS!

 

Like many “projects in the works,” it was easily cut out of the priorities list as the daily duties of running a business kept things moving forward.  It became a “weekend project” that was never touched on the weekends because I was too busy doing anything else but, like recovering from a devastatingly busy week or going on adventures with my husband or preparing my podcast episodes.

 

Every once in while, I would dig back into it, having to spend even extra time re-orienting myself on where I was in the project because it had been so long that I couldn’t remember.

 

These moments were usually caused by the realization that yet another friend had launched their book.  C’mon, Katie…you’re not that far away…just do it!

 

But, alas, I would get swept up into the busy-ness of everything else after making just a few progressive steps forward.

 

Until it was June 2015.

 

Eight months after I had finished writing the book.  

 

I was utterly sick of waiting for the stars to align.  Sick of my business stalling in this area for so long.  Sick of not keeping the promise to myself to get this book out there.  Sick of making it into something huge and insurmountable.

 

So in June 2015…I launched the damn book.  😉

 

Cue stadium filled with loud roars of applause and cheer.  YEAH!!

 

I had it formatted on Fiverr (thanks to my friend Jody Agard for the great resource).

 

I did about 30 minutes of research to figure out in which categories the book should be placed (I’m not even sure if the ones I chose are the best options for a #1 bestseller outcome, but at that point, getting it out there was the goal).

 

I set up my profile on Amazon.

 

I reached out to 25 people and asked for help promoting.

 

And I uploaded the bad boy to Amazon.

 

BOOM!

 

What took me 8 months to complete could have been done in less than 1 week.  

 

Why do I flaunt my horrific screw ups for you so openly?

 

Because I don’t want you to make the same mistake.  I don’t want you to wait on launching something that probably won’t take you nearly as long as you think it’ll take to create and definitely won’t take you as long as you think to actually launch!

 

Is the book perfect?  Close, but no.  I am darn proud of it and know it’s wonderful (per the feedback I got from the dozens of people I gave it to for free during this 8 month stint).

 

Is the price perfect?  Nope.  After asking people and reading about what I should charge for the book, I’m still not sure I chose the perfect price.

 

Did I go with the perfect publisher?  I love the ease and the popularity of Amazon, but there is a strong case for using Apple’s iBook.

 

The point is that none of these things need to be “perfect!”  It just needs to be LAUNCHED so that the momentum of forward movement will progress things.

 

Waiting on PERFECT will stop your project in its tracks.  

 

Just get it out there, in the best manner that you possibly can for now and keep moving!

 

Focus on what you have in front of you NOW and ACT ON IT!

 

And that, my friend, is how you get things DONE.

 

What have YOU been “working on” that you can get DONE?

 

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By the way, if you’re interested in reading my book, How to Launch Your Brand Online: Create a Community of Loyal Customers in 10 Simple Steps, you can find it on Amazon! 😉