I have worked with writers for more than a decade, and during that time, I’ve learned that the leading career killer is burnout. While author careers begin in a million different ways, most of them end in just one way: burnout. 

If you are tired, weary, or stuck in your writing, this episode is for you. 

I am no stranger to burnout.

About 18 months ago, I woke up so overwhelmed that I couldn’t get out of bed. I had a mental breakdown and spent the whole day in bed, unable to decide what to do or what to work on. I was totally burnt out. I tallied my current responsibilities and realized I had 19 different roles. 

Something had to change.

I used a tool developed in my mastermind group called the Project Value Planner. I used this simple spreadsheet to rank each of my activities according to how easy they were to complete, how much joy I received from completing them, and how much money they made.

Each activity received a score of 1 to 10 based on Easiness, Joy, and Revenue. Formulas built into the spreadsheet multiplied the rankings into a Total Value score. Then I sorted my activities by Total Value score to see how valuable each project was and how they compared to each other.

The results were pretty clear. Most of my 19 roles had mediocre scores, but a few activities on the list scored high. I started cutting the lowest scoring activities out of my life. It was painful at the time but so needed. 

Up to that point, the Novel Marketing show was co-hosted by James L. Rubart. He was also swamped, and he went through a similar process. Interestingly, the same process for him produced very different results. For me, the Project Value Planner made it clear I needed to keep hosting Novel Marketing. For Jim, the same process revealed he needed to stop hosting the podcast.

The revelations of the Project Value Planner led to the famous Novel Marketing episode 204 Focus, Pruning and Why Novel Marketing is About to Change, where Jim stepped down from the hosting podcast. He still comes back from time to time but he is no longer on every episode.

I think that episode saved the show. If we hadn’t taken these drastic steps, I think we would have podfaded. 

Jim desperately needed more time for his other exciting projects. Stepping away from the podcast opened up a lot of time to work on those projects. When I stepped away from my non-podcast activities, I gained a lot of hours to put more work into the podcast.

Interestingly, around that time, many of the other book marketing podcasts podfaded.

* The Book Marketing Show* Sci-Fi & Fantasy Marketing Podcast* The Smarty Pants Book Marketing Podcast* Book Launch Show

While Sell More Books Show didn’t podfade, it did have a host changeup. 

I will have a free template version of the Project Value Planner spreadsheet in the show notes if you want to try it out yourself.  

I don’t hold anything against the shows that came to an end. Podcasting every week is a lot of work. The return on the time investment must be worth it for the host. Patrons who supported Novel Marketin...