Everything in life is a choice.

You can choose when to write. You can choose what to write. You can choose to pursue a literary agent and sign a contract with a traditional publisher. You can choose to self-publish.

You can choose to be exclusive to one publishing platform. You can publish on all of them. You can do marketing yourself. Or you can hire someone to help you market. Or you can choose to do no marketing at all.

You can write fiction or nonfiction. You can write essays or academic work. You could write a book a year or a book a decade. Or no books at all and instead focus on shorter content.

None of it is right or wrong. It is all up to you. This freedom can be paralyzing because there are limitless choices. But instead, look at it as freedom. Freedom to do it your way. Freedom to express yourself and run your business the way you want. Freedom to make this as big or small as you want.

It’s up to you. It’s all your choice. We live in a beautiful time where anything is possible. Writers a hundred years ago would have done anything to get the opportunities we have.

There are many ways to build a platform or business as an author. But if there is one thing you must do, it is taking action instead of feeling paralyzed by all the choices.