Making Your Stories Work For You

Okay, so I was at critique group last week, and I have some of the greatest crit partners. They are inspirational and talented. Ali's said this before, but it helped me once again. She said she likes to have her books "working for her."

That doesn't mean they're all published, making money, though she does have some awesome books out there you should buy and read. No, what she means is that she wants them DOING SOMETHING while she works on something else. Whether that's querying them, or sending them to beta readers, or editing them. She doesn't like to just let books sit.


I've been thinking about that for a few days, because I have a couple of books just sitting. They're good books (in my opinion), but they're not doing anything. I've basically shelved them. So I've been trying to access what, if anything, I should do with them. There are some options, but there are some limitations too.

I'm working on other things, so it's not like I don't have plenty to do writing-wise. But these two books aren't currently working for me.

What do you do? Do you put all of your books to work for you?