I put the ‘versus’ in the title because I always feel like promoting and writing are competing with each other for time out of my day.
We’ve gotten to the point where promo takes up a large amount of a published author’s day.
Even if you’re not yet published, building a platform for yourself is still highly recommended for a strong web presence and to be a more attractive candidate to agents and editors. If you have a large imprint on the online community and you can reach a lot of people through Twitter, Facebook, and blogging, it definitely makes a difference—because those contacts represent potential sales.
A typical writer (and this is just my personal observation, looking at the writers in my Google Reader) will blog at least once a week and interacts on either Facebook or Twitter (sometimes both.) Being active on these applications means writing blog posts, reading and responding to comments, visiting other blogs, updating a Facebook status, reading and responding to the Facebook news feed….you get the idea. Usually this means about an hour out of the day—at the minimum.
But the writing still comes first—otherwise, there’s no need for the platform or the promo. But squeezing this writing time in around our online time can be really challenging.
We all have the same number of ours in our day, so there’s only so much we can do with this problem.
I’ve got Finger Lickin’ Dead releasing June 7, but I’ve also got a couple of different deadlines (for different projects) coming up at almost the same time.
For me, it has meant becoming more flexible (and I’m not usually the most flexible person in the world when it comes to my schedule.)
I used to have a very set schedule for blogging, and social media (writing is something I’ve always been flexible about). But with increased need for promo, I’ve had to learn to go with the flow a little more.
This is what I’ve been doing, which has been pretty successful so far:
Decrease the times each day that I check email—and have dedicated times that I look at it.
When my phone rings, I check to see who is calling before picking up (I always pick up for my family…friends I’ll sometimes need to call back during a break.)
Write more than one blog post at a time. Brainstorm blog posts for a week.
Timer: Y’all must be sick of hearing me talk about timers, but they really do help reel you in when you’re on social media too much.
Blog visiting: Divide the blogs you visit into days of the week (either by using Google Reader, or by jotting down the blogs on your calendar.)
Remember to prioritize writing. This might mean staying up 15-20 minutes later at night or getting up 15-20 minutes earlier in the morning.
How do you balance your online time and your writing time?
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Some excellent notes on managing all the tasks — and that highlights a side benefit to being overwhelmed with a task: It helps you break habits where you check email and stats and things like that too often.
Otherwise, I try to keep Dean Wesley Smith’s idea that the need for all that Writer Promotion are a myth.
I do think that for a mystery writer in traditional publishing, it’s more important, at least at launch, because those first couple of weeks in the bookstore are really important to how the bookseller will handle your future books.
Other than that, though, it’s a matter of the time it takes to accumulate the books on shelf. Those books, over time, will build an audience.
Very helpful post – I love following my favourite blogs (yours being one of them) but it is so time consuming. Will try your recommendation. Thanks.
I never thought of checking your fav blogs once a week. Been trying to catch up on everything daily… it just takes too long! Thanks for the tip!
snarkandire.blogspot.com
Elizabeth – You offer some very good advice! One of the things I’ve found helps is that I try to streamline what I do online. For instance, my blog post is automatically fed into my Facebook account via Networked Blogs, and it’s fed automatically onto Twitter via Twitterfeed. So I don’t have to take the time to be in all those places at once manually, so to speak. The more streamlining, the less time I have to spend managing that stuff.
I constantly struggle with this dilemma. Both are important. I guess the best advice is to make sure you achieve your writing quota FIRST!
I’m taking more time in the evenings to write rather than go online. So far it’s working!
I think your last tip is the most vital – without carving out time to write, we’d have nothing to promote! Once again, Elizabeth, your organizational skills leave me gasping in admiration.
Balance is a never-ending struggle in my writing life–thanks for some great tips and the reminder that even 15 minutes a day can keep my wip moving forward…
Excellent advice. I realize that I am spending way too much time on social networking, especially blogging. Have divided the blogs I visit into days. Few blogs per day doesn’t eat into my writing time.
Good list. Balance is key in a writer’s day, for sure!
Marvin D Wilson
The Daring Novelist–I think you’re right about the couple of weeks right after launch being really critical for a book release. After that, it’s gravy! Promo has to come second to writing…but with traditional publishing, I think it can’t come *too* far behind because there’s just so much competition for readers.
Betty–And if you do it in an organized way, then you still really get around to all the blogs, just not all at once. :) I had to tweak my days a couple of times because some people only blog M-W-F and some only do weekends, etc. But it worked out well.
H.L. Banks–Hope it helps. :) Dividing them by day really can make a difference.
Alex–Good idea! Sometimes I have to write at night, too. It’s not my favorite time of day to write, but it’s definitely better than nothing!
Margot–Very good point! My blog feed goes to Facebook and my Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen blogs go to Twitter. I also schedule my tweets each day with Social Oomph.
Rachna–I think it makes the best sense. Then you’re still catching up with everyone, but you’re not killing yourself to do so.
Alan–I think that makes good sense. Anything over that is gravy. People say that you won’t have anything to promote if you don’t write (which is, obviously, true!) but the reverse is also true…if we don’t promote, we don’t sell, then no one will publish our next books.
The Old Silly–And it’s so hard to accomplish!
Funny you should mention checking blogs once a week instead of daily. I just started doing something similar. Also picked up one of your earlier tips on time management, and now do my five minutes of social networking after an hour of writing or editing. Working pretty good so far. Only downside is when I visit a blog and see links to people who sound interesting. I think, gosh, I should visit her blog…. My five minutes is up. LOL
One more thing to add to your list (and this keeps you from having to schedule your blog visits), add an email subscriber (as you have now done, Elizabeth). Feedburner has a free one. It allows you to get the new postings in your emails and with gmail at least, you can see what is coming in. For me, the fact that I work a full time job, it helps to see when emails come in and when I get a break and can check my emails, if an interesting post has been posted by someone I’m following, I can respond during my breaks. This way I don’t have to open my dashboard every day to see who is posting something new. I’d never get anything done if I only read blogs. I figure if you have something good to say and you want folks to follow you, you will put an email subscriber on your blog so that your readers will be able to follow you without having to open unnecessary windows.
I have an email subscriber on both my blogs, not that I have that many people subscribing to my blogs but the option is there, you can follow me or subscribe and get my postings automatically.
Also, when you have kids and work, those take priority over everything else, unless writing is your full time job, then you treat it just like a regular job. I know one mystery writer, Tamar Meyers, who schedules her days just like a 9 to 5 job. She goes in her office and writes, edits, promotes, et cetera all during the set times of being at “work” unless she is on the road. She keeps to this schedule and that is something else we writers can do if this is our full time job (it isn’t mine, since I work at home doing medical transcription, but I also have two teenagers and have to be taxi since neither of them have their license or a vehicle to get themselves around).
And this one is still up for debate but part of your promoting is having a signature in your email as well as every time you post a comment on someone’s blog. Definitely need to have your website and blog addy out there, since that hopefully will drive people to visit you and either subscribe to your blog or follow you or even buy books. So far I’ve gained some followers by leaving a signature line on blog comments but haven’t seen an increase in book sales; most of my sales come from direct contact at homeschool conferences or teacher conferences/workshops and those few people who buy for their grandkids or other kids in their family (just sent out a copy of one of the books to a child in NV for his birthday from his aunt, whom I met at a homeschool conference a couple of months ago).
Just adding to the list of things we can do – to help out – lol – E :)
Elysabeth Eldering
Author of the Junior Geography Detective Squad, 50-state, mystery, trivia series
Where will the adventure take you next?
http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com
http://jgdsseries.weebly.com
When it comes to phone calls, I rarely answer call that don’t come up with a known name on my cell phone. Replying to E-mail is a nightmare sometimes, in particular when I’ve been out traveling for a week. Right now I’m sitting in the bar in a boring air-port hotel, replying to mail. I deserve a beer now, or what do you think?
Cold As Heaven
Great List Elisabeth…I’ll link to you again in my weekly roundup…it’s becoming a habit…LOL
Elspeth–Well, sometimes everything is a disaster! But I’m super-organizined when I’m worried about deadlines…which would be now!
Cheryl–If you just write a page a day (and in 15 minutes, 250 words is about right), then you’ve got a book in less than a year!
Maryann–Oh, you’re right–fitting social media into 5 minutes is tough! Glad the Pomodoro technique is helping with your writing, though. :)
Cold As Heaven–I think you deserve more than 1!
Too funny — I just wrote a post on this very topic, because my self-discipline is currently very bad. I’m trying writing in cafes, among other things, to get away from the lure of online.
Thanks for your tips on the subject :-)
Lawrence Block advised making writing the first thing you do in the morning. And this was back in the day before all this stuff exploded. It’s easy to grab your coffee and jump on FB or Twitter or check news or email.
Getting into the habit of at least writing a certain minimum of words first thing is a good one (as Alan observed above). It makes the day go so much better.
Great post.
I tend to struggle to find time to write at all, between working full-time and commuting four hours a day.
This means whatever writing time I have, I can’t afford to waste. My solution is to do my first draft long-hand – that way I don’t have to even turn on my computer and if I want to get away from distractions at home I can pick up and go and work in a coffee shop or sit in the park if the weather is nice. When I’m on a second draft I leave my wireless broadband switched off so there’s no temptation.
Now I just have to work out how to inspire myself to write creatively on a packed commuter train!
At the moment I’m unpublished, although I have submitted to agents, so setting up a platform seems a little silly when I may never become a published fiction writer, plus blog writing would eat into my writing time. Any help/advice/thoughts on that would be interesting to read!
Thanks for the great tips! I try to make dedicated times to jump online and read blogs, etc… I never thought about setting a timer, but it’s a good idea because sometimes I look up and I’ve been reading and updating for over two hours! That’s writing time I missed!
Looks like my early morning comment got swallowed — or put under the wrong post (I’ve been known to do that). At any rate, it was brilliant.
Quote: “How do you balance your online time and your writing time?” Uhm, I’m not for the moment, at least when it comes to my blog.
I spend a lot of time reading, commenting and re-tweeting interesting post, that my brain stops processing at some point :D.
Thank you for the interesting post