Is efficiency killing your writing business?

There is little that gives me more of a dopamine hit than putting together a system or process that produces maximum efficiency to a task I don’t enjoy doing. If I can automate something for my author business, I will. Set-it-and-forget-it is the dream, right?

We are all busy people. You might work a day job or the night shift, have a spouse to connect with, children to raise, friends to see and enjoy, errands to run, taxes to pay…

Also, you’re writing books. 

The need for efficient systems is obvious. The ability to get certain tasks completed as quickly as possible is crucial to being able to keep all the plates of this modern life spinning without crashing down.

For the last decade, the author world has been obsessed with finding efficient ways to write and publish. I don’t know how many of you remember a hubbub maybe five or six years ago about some outlining system that claimed you could write a million words a month if you used it. In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious that was bullshit—one of the many cons run in this industry, fueled by the hopes and dreams of good people—but at the time a lot of otherwise rational folks fell into its gravitational pull, drawn in under the promise of efficiency.

Efficiency is, after all, the key to rapid output, and rapid output is, of course, the key to success in this business.

Right? Right?????? That’s the silver bullet, yes?

(Narrator: It was not the silver bullet.)

And let us not forget the approach of “minimum viable product” that took the industry by storm, meaning you write the book as quickly as possible and get it just up to the line where readers don’t complain so much about the editing that they won’t buy the next one in the series. “MVP” was touted for a while as the best way to make a living off your indie published books, and those who gave the whole idea side-eye were shamed for being luddites, idealists, or “snooty” artists.  

Did a small group of folks hit some big sales numbers with MVP? Sure. Did exponentially more folks strike out with this approach? Of course. And did the mindset contribute to the widespread notion that indie books are low quality? Anybody’s guess.

But—but—but EFFICIENCY!

Nowadays the sales pitches are all around using AI to make your writing processes more efficient. I won’t refute that I’ve seen it work, that AI has made a lot of writers’ process more efficient in that they can now publish books quicker than before, or maybe the same speed as before but burnout was slowing them down. Maybe you’re one of the writers who’s found this to be true.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I’ve been around long enough to spot when the same underlying mindset problem is wearing a new outfit and a fake mustache.

I’m a fan of efficiency myself. Always have been, always will be. For certain things. Efficiency is nice when it comes to tasks and processes we don’t enjoy. It’s a value most associated with the Enneagram Type 3, the Achiever. It’s also a value of capitalism. And because we all live beneath the overlay of capitalism, and because we have all nine types inside of us, including the Three, each of us are subject to the allure of efficiency. It has its place in the world, like all values.

But many, many of the problems we’re seeing in our industry and the world at large today are a result of an imbalance of values, where we put one or two on a pedestal and do away with the rest.

The crises we’re seeing in today’s world are in large part a result of decades of seeking efficiency at the cost of almost everything else. We abandon our values of connection, presence, joy, and curiosity at the altar of efficiency, and then I get to have the conversation with multiple authors each week who are wondering why they don’t enjoy writing anymore.

Do you know what the most efficient way to write a book is? Kidnap a writer, hold them in a basement, and threaten their life if they don’t write a book that you can put your name on. It’s an incredibly efficient way to get a book written because it only requires you throw some PB&Js down into your basement each day. Maybe give them access to a faucet to drink out of. Then check a few times a day to make sure they haven’t escaped.

Quite efficient, yet there are obvious reasons we don’t do this. Morals, for one. Empathy for another. Laws for yet another.

That’s obviously an extreme example of efficiency, but I hope it goes to show that efficiency on its own can be a horrible thing. Efficiency without morals or any other values, without any lines that you will not cross for the sake of speeding things up while keeping costs low, quickly becomes a monstrous and inhuman thing.

You may also be wondering what the point is of “writing a book” if you weren’t involved in the creative process. I think that’s a provocative question as well.

As an industry, we’re long overdue for examining our relationship to efficiency. For starters, think about how many of your daily operations—social media, Goodreads, apps—are connected to your Gmail account or your Facebook account. I’m in deep in this way, too. I did it for the sake of convenience, for efficiency in my daily operations (even the non-essential ones). Now, those companies own almost every piece of data about you and me, even things we don’t know about ourselves. We have very little recourse, and it’s laborious to disentangle ourselves from that web (though not impossible).

As a culture, we’ve been sacrificing all kinds of things without a second thought for the sake of efficiency. Next-day delivery? Of course I need that those hanging shelves here tomorrow. Do whatever it takes to make that happen, just don’t tell me about it!

When it comes to our writing, specifically, this need for efficiency can lead us into a major psychological and emotional trap. Writing words that we may not end up using is quite inefficient in the book-writing process, if you want to be a purist about it. So, we may find ourselves about to start a new scene, unsure of which direction to go, and unwilling to start writing to figure it out, because what if we’re writing in a direction we don’t end up liking and we’ve “wasted” all those words? How inefficient!

Efficiency is useful, but not everything is best enjoyed with efficiency.

Not every end result is made better by an “efficient” process. Yet the need for efficiency is so hardwired into most of us that we don’t even notice it’s causing problems in situations that may be most effectively approached inefficiently, for the sake of a richer process and more satisfying results.

Efficiency runs directly up against other important parts of our author life; namely, security, and artistic expression.

Efficiency vs. security

You can see this online most obviously. Two-factor authentication is a solid step to securing your digital life, but it is not efficient. It’s annoying as shit because it slows everything down. You have to keep your phone on you or open up your inbox just to log in somewhere. But it is the new standard for online security, and you’re almost guaranteed to get your account hacked if you don’t use it.

Backing up files to multiple locations—redundancy—is also not efficient. It takes thought, feels like a waste of time, and you may never end up needing all of it. But if you want to make sure that your files are safe, that they will not be lost in some freak accident or hacking nightmare, backing up to multiple locations is wise.

Now think about the meaningful relationships in your life. When you’re learning to trust someone, you do that by spending time with them, sharing bits about yourself with them over time to see how they react and if they keep from sharing what’s not theirs to share. There is a not an efficient questionnaire you can give a new possible friend that will do the job of simply spending time with them, observing them in unexpected situations, and seeing how they show up for you. Creating secure relationships is inefficient as shit. Yet it’s still wonderful and important.

I do see plenty of authors hoping to take shortcuts to secure networking in this industry, though. If someone stands on a stage and says they sell a lot of books, authors may want to be efficient about their time at the event and go directly to that person to make a connection. They will often overlook a lot of red flags with this person for the sake of efficiency in this area. They almost always regret it later, because building trust takes time and cannot be made more efficient by assuming that status, power, or influence equals trustworthiness.

Efficiency vs. artistic expression

To be fair, not everyone who writes books considers it an artistic endeavor, and that’s perfectly fine. In the Venn diagram of art and entertainment, many authors are happy to fall squarely in the entertainment category.

I don’t see many people last there, though. It’s hard to stay connected to the story when there’s none of us in it, and as soon as we put some of ourselves in it, artistic expression plays a part of the process. You may think of yourself first and foremost as an entertainer rather than an artist, but if you’ve lasted in this business selling books, you undoubtedly have moments of deep artistic expression in your books, scenes that tug at readers’ humanity after they finish the final page.

Art provokes. It asks questions without giving easy answers. It invites the audience in. It asks for our interpretations not because those interpretations are correct but because they tell us something about ourselves and start a conversation. Art stirs conversation beyond, “What did you think of the book?” or “Who was your favorite character?”

Entertainment’s job, in short, is to hold our attention, evoke a few emotions, then let us return to our normal lives, maybe with some new swag to let others know we’ve enjoyed that particular entertainment. This is not to say there isn’t immense value in entertainment. We all need breaks from reality to relax, recharge, and take a vacation from the confines of our own personality. But it does seem to me to serve a distinct purpose from art, even though the two are usually mixed together—to borrow from some beloved storytelling, art is the medicine and entertainment is the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down.

Creating art is a process that runs counter to efficiency in many ways. Art is messy because the artist is messy (contrary to what our ego might want us to believe). When we try to add efficiency to art, what we get is entertainment or a giant, annoying mess like those TikTok painters who splash a few buckets of acrylic on a giant canvas while pretending to be in agony or ecstasy and calling it art. 404 error, genuine expression not found.

I frequently hear authors tell me that the book or series they want to write seems too big for them. They don’t feel they’re a good enough writer to tackle it. My first question is generally, “How do you think you become a good writer if not by taking on challenging projects?” Also, at the heart of this resistance tends to be an unacknowledged craving for efficiency. They don’t see how they can write this project of the heart using the same efficient process they use to write their other books.

When they apply that established efficient process to this idea, they worry the result is likely to be a big turd. And they might be right. The big idea might not be one where an efficient writing approach leads to the best result. But if you can’t acknowledge your white-knuckle grip on efficiency and then loosen your grasp after seeing that you’re wielding the wrong tool for the job, then you’re not going to be able to see a path forward with the project you really care about. You may die before you ever start, and then it doesn’t matter how cool of an idea it was. It never existed.

Efficiency and tradeoffs

Efficiency holds an alluring promise for us: you can do all the things if you just do them efficiently.

In other words, if you’re efficient enough, you never have to endure the pain of accepting a tradeoff. You can write both series this year, if you’re efficient enough. You can attend both conferences and implement all of the tips you learn there, if you’re efficient enough. You can get your workout in, go to the grocery store, write 2,000 words, meal prep for the week, and drive the kids from school to their sports practices—all without asking for help from your partner—if you’re efficient enough. You can join this free book promotion and that round-robin promotion, and run ads on multiple platforms, and create and post two TikToks and Reels a day… if you’re just efficient enough.

In other words, we often lean on the promise of efficiency to avoid the pain of accepting that we have limits, we are but mortals, and we cannot do all the things we want to or believe we should do.

Instead, when we feel the tradeoff rearing its ugly head, we hit the accelerator on efficiency. More efficient. More, more, more.

We’ll eventually hit a wall on how efficient we can be, which will be hard for us to accept if we’ve done no work around this emotional pattern. But before we even hit the wall, we’ll have sacrificed other values that may mean more to us in subtle ways.

Sure, you wrote both of those series in a year, but how do you feel about the quality of each? Did they both sell well, or did splitting your focus hobble your marketing efforts? Did you enjoy writing them?

Yes, you got a workout in, meal prepped for the week, got your words written, and picked up the kids from school. But did you feel present in your body at the gym? As you prepared your meals were you able to feel gratitude for all the hands that helped bring the food to your plate? How do you feel about the words you wrote? And did you snap at your kids in the car because your body is sore from working out too hard? Are you exhausted from too little sleep because of all you need to do, and now you want nothing more than a milkshake even though you just meal prepped for the week? Oh yeah, and you can’t remember the last time you got to hang out with your best friend and just relax. 

Letting things go undone, skipping opportunities that hold promise, asking others for help, saying no, and accepting that there are more experiences in life that you will miss out on than those you will experience takes courage to practice.

When we don’t choose courage in this way, we usually end up being slaves to the dream of efficiency.

Efficiency has its place. If you can find an efficient way to upload your books to platforms, you might want to take it. (There are usually tradeoffs there, too, like when you upload to a distributor like Draft2Digital and they take 10% of your royalties.) If you work with clients, finding an efficient way to schedule with them will do you huge favors.  

But I hope more of us can start challenging the assumption that writing books must first and foremost be as efficient as we can make it. If we don’t challenge this subconscious belief, we’re almost guaranteed to become blocked when we write books that mean anything to us beyond their sales potential.

We’re seeing more and more that efficiency isn’t just a tool but can be brandished as a weapon to harm us.  

Emotions are not efficient—they show up when they want and often won’t let you do what you want to do until they’re felt, which occasionally takes a long time if they’ve been building up—so they’re usually the first to be thrown own when someone starts bludgeoning people with efficiency.

Emotions work on their own time, and only a fool would think it wise to cut them out of the writing process. You can try it, but the wheels come off pretty quickly when people do. The writing feels dry and lifeless, and readers notice that. Sitting down to write feels dry and procedural as well, and one rogue emotion slipping out of the cage you’ve constructed for it can destroy your process because you haven’t built in any scaffolding for such a thing.

Caring for others is not efficient.

Grieving is not efficient.

Letting inspiration overtake you is not efficient.

Experimenting with a half-baked idea to see what comes from it is not efficient.

Experiencing art with no idea who you’ll be on the other side is not efficient.

But all of these things are necessary for a rich, aligned, and sustainable creative life. 

While the horrors of DOGE (that’s the recently made-up Department of Government Efficiency) persist, I feel a glimmer of hope that we might collectively start to look upon the raw concept of efficiency with a little more suspicion throughout our society, community, and in our personal life.

Perhaps “efficiency” can become an activation word for us to pause, recognize that the concept can hold such a promise of relief that the mere mention of it might shut off our critical thinking and compassion for others, and begin to ask ourselves if it’s not being conjured to intentionally manipulate us for someone else’s benefit.

We’re reaching a point in history where being purposefully inefficient is a form of rebellion. Eating your meals slow. Walking somewhere in the neighborhood instead of driving your car (or in the case of my neighbors, instead of driving your golf carts). Asking your kids or spouse to take on their fair share of responsibilities so you have some time to stare out a window or poke around at a new story idea. Writing at a coffee shop because you leave in a better mood even if you’d likely get more words down working from your house.

Let’s stop pretending there are no trade-offs if we’re simply efficient enough.

Let’s stop pretending that efficiency is the highest value that will lead us toward long-term success.

Let’s stop pretending that efficiency always makes our lives better.

The pressure to make every minute of our life more efficient is certainly overwhelming. The way it promises us avoidance of pain is crucial to recognize. What pain it saves us from today will eventually catch up to us later, though—crumbling relationships, stifled creativity, depression, anxiety, physical health issues.

The path to sustainability is not through obsessive efficiency but rather through learning where efficiency in one area will support our energy and attention flowing more to the meaningful parts of our life that are best enjoyed inefficiently.

Efficiency is not a replacement for accepting our mortality and limitations. It’s a tool to be used sparingly for those unavoidable parts of being an adult that support the parts of being alive we wouldn’t want to live without.  

I invite you to ask yourself where efficiency in your author business might be cutting off the circulation to important aspects of your writing life. Where has it become a shield from necessary tradeoffs instead of a support beam for your humanity? And where might your career take off if you could relinquish your grip on it just a little?

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this. Is this something you’ve been thinking about lately, too? Or is this the first time you considered where efficiency might be the problem not the solution?

 What’s something in your life that’s made entirely better by being inefficient?