A Little Advice From Me to Me

Just the other day I posted “Pace Yourself” and after the activities of the past few days I think I need to take my own advice.

I have my book tour coming up, an author presentation and a few (dozen) other things to tend to. The first draft of my 2^nd novel is expected in two weeks…and I still have about 16,000 words to go before I reach my goal of 66,000.

But I fear I have become somewhat undisciplined over these past few days, lingering over my keyboard and not really being productive. Honestly, how many times do you need to check on your emails, stats, or fb page? Once a day is enough. It has to be, because then you end up spending more and more time, wasting time that could be of use elsewhere. I have a house to run, a 3 yr old, I work part time for the military, I am taking an advanced writing course and writing yet another book outside of the one due in two weeks.

This weekend, my laptop returns to the second floor library. I will allow myself a period of time every day, but then I promise myself I will not return until the next day.

I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Pace Yourself

Writing a book takes a lot of time, and once you’ve moved into publishing and marketing, a good portion of your time will have to be put aside for this as well. If you have not made it to this step yet, you cannot imagine the hours you will have to put in to follow through on your marketing. So take heed.

By now you probably have some or all of the following; a facebook page (for your book), a blog, web page, author page on Goodreads, book trailer, calendar and email (again for your book). Once all these things have been established you have to tend to them. Statistics give you an overview of traffic on your pages, and you want to pay close attention to what’s going on here. It is important to generate traffic, keep interest and be visible. Most of all, you want to avoid flat lines and a drop in that precious traffic. This takes time. Time to plan, to produce and to follow up.

Before long, you might feel overwhelmed by all you have to do, for there are only 24 hours in a day. If you set aside a time every day to look through each of these pages so that you might deal with any pressing matters, but reserve a specific block of time for each, say on a ‘every other day’ basis, you might establish a good flow that won’t bog you down. Keep in mind that when it comes to marketing your book, the afore mentioned list is only part of what you will be doing. There should also be giveaways, book signings, blog tours, interviews and presentations…to name a few. All of these things take time and there isn’t really a way around them.

The more people who know about your book, the better chance it has of making its way through the literary jungle and into people’s homes.

Now that you’ve got the ball rolling, you might be thinking about writing another book. If you have managed to pace yourself, you should easily be able to adapt your schedule to allow time for the new creation without extending the block of time already in use. After all, we all have lives outside of our writing. Don’t we?

My advice is simple. Pace yourself, not just for you, but for everyone in your life as well.