Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

What happens when you want to start taking piano lessons and art classes?

Well, if you’re Elizabeth Craig’s daughter, unfortunately it means that you’ll have to give up other after-school activities to take on new ones.

I decided a couple of years ago that there are absolutely wonderful moms out there who drive their children to multiple activities daily….but that I’m not one of them. :) So I ‘just say no’ to making my schedule even busier than it already is.

There’s a limited amount of extracurricular driving that I’m willing to take on at this point. I’ve got my son’s guitar teacher coming out to the house and I’m looking for a piano teacher to do the same.

What’s more, I think that children, when they’re overextended, get just as stressed out as we do. I know that I can’t take a look at my calendar without wincing and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Not everyone takes on too much…but I have a feeling that most of the writers in the online community do.

Many of us are blogging 3 or more times a week, networking on different social media platforms, volunteering for fundraisers online or in the community, working day jobs, helping care for our children or aging parents, and keeping house.

All of these things are important. But we frequently end up feeling stretched thin, even with all the things we need to do and want to do.

One thing that I’m learning to do (and it’s been really hard, because I’m a people-pleaser) is to say no to additional responsibilities.

I have to protect my time pretty fiercely at this point, because there’s just not very much of it to start out with. Usually, the kind of request that I get is for serving on a committee or a volunteer project at the school, etc. Again, these are very worthwhile causes. And I do help out a lot…but unfortunately, there aren’t really enough people who can volunteer—so the same people tend to be picked over and over again.

Saying no:

It’s much easier for me to nicely refuse (to be part of a supper club, serve on the PTA board, be part of a committee at church) if I can do it over email. That’s a no-brainer—we’re writers. Making a gentle refusal is easy when we’re writing.

But now…I can turn down people on the phone pretty well. It took some practice to get to that point. But I now can say, “I’d really love to help out, but my schedule isn’t going to permit it. I’m sorry.” Or…if I’m having a weak moment, I’ll ask them if I can sleep on it (and then email them the next day that I really won’t be able to participate.)

I’ve now also had some success in turning people down in person, which for me has always been the hardest. Again, If I’m having a hard time or feeling some pressure, I’ll ask if I can check my schedule and email or call them later. That gives me an opportunity to step back from the situation and come up with a polite response later on.

People might think (especially if you’re at home) that you have more time than you do. They might not realize all the things (social media, promo, learning the writing craft, writing) that you’re doing in a day…and they don’t have to know about it. All we have to do is politely say that we really wish that we could participate, but we’re just not able to.

How well do you protect your writing time and keep your schedule under control? Is it easy for you to say no?

****
Sign up for the free, monthly Writer’s Knowledge Base newsletter for writing tips and resources and to be entered in our first giveaway. Details here.

Finger Lickin’ Dead launches June 7th!

I got an early copy of Finger Lickin’ Dead via UPS on Tuesday (the book releases June 7).

Since I’m now at less than a month until the launch, I’m getting in gear for promotion. I’ve been more active with appearances lately, and am starting to set up stops for a blog tour.

For me, the best approach has been a combination of making appearances after the book’s release and gently promoting the book via social media before the release and on the launch day.

I’ve tried different marketing approaches, and have found a lot of great resources online. On the Writer’s Knowledge Base, you can find 234 posts on promoting your release. Here are some particularly useful posts:

How to write a press release:

Authors: How to write a press release for your book—by Alexis Grant (Always good to take press release advice from a journalist.)

Book trailers:

How To Use Book Trailers Effectively—Joanna Penn’s interview with Darcy Pattison

Play nice:

Ten Commandments for Book Launch Day—by Randy Susan Meyers

5 Launch Day Lessons—by M.K. Hobson

Press kits for your website/blog:

Book Marketing Part III: More on press kits—by Lavinia Thompson

Launch party:

How to Throw an Awesome Book Launch: by Moonrat

How to Plan a Successful Debut Book Party—by Jody Hedlund

How to build an author page on Amazon and Goodreads:

How to build an Amazon author page and other information—by Cassander Carr

Using social media to launch your book:

HOW TO: Launch Any Product Using Social Media—by Guy Kawasaki

Promoting your book even before the sale:

27 things you can do to promote your book—Before you write it, before you launch it, and after you’ve published it—by Sue Collier

If you’ve released a book, what worked for you?

****

Sign up for the free, monthly Writer’s Knowledge Base newsletter for writing tips and resources and to be entered in our first giveaway. Details here.

I’m one of those writers who’s a real people-pleaser.

Would you like me to change something in my manuscript? A character name, the setting, a plot point? Bring a character back from the dead or kill one? I’m your girl.

Want me to talk to your book club? On the radio? Give a chat at a bookstore? I’m there.

Want me to do a reading?….No thanks. I’ll ask to do something different.

I’ve read aloud on two occasions—and both times I was taken completely by surprise. Once I was on a panel at a bookstore event and a reader from the audience asked me to read an excerpt from my book.

“I don’t read,” I told her. She was a scowling older lady and she raised her eyebrows at my proclamation that I didn’t read. “I mean, aloud,” I said. Again with the eyebrows. “Except to my children.” She looked stern. So I ended up reading my prologue. I was quite put-out.

The second time, I was on a book tour and didn’t realize a reading was part of the gig. And I had to follow Avery Aames who has been a professional actress. Ugh. Let’s just say that I couldn’t compare. (The picture at the top of the post shows Avery and me together before last summer’s event—luckily there are no pictures of the moment when I realized I’d be doing a reading. :) )

Why do I dislike readings so much? I’m just one of those people who doesn’t like being read to. One of the things that will drive me up the wall is to have my hubby try and read a story out of the newspaper to me. I’ll read it myself! In seconds, because I read quickly. And since I don’t enjoy being read to, I’m also not wild about reading aloud, myself.

This being said, I’ve attended a number of events where there were readings (and couldn’t escape). Here are some tips for handling readings:

Keep it short. Really short. This Galley Cat article recommends keeping the reading to three minutes.

If you don’t have a microphone, speak loudly.

Use inflection when you’re reading. Avery Aames honestly had the best reading I’ve ever heard. Did her background in television have anything to do with that? Of course! I felt almost like I was listening to a book on tape…which was much more entertaining than an ordinary reading.

If you’re on a panel, be sure to listen attentively when someone else is reading their excerpt.

I’d love to be converted into a writer who enjoys readings, but I have a feeling I’m a lost cause. Any tips to win me over to them? Does anyone out there actually enjoy readings—either listening to them or giving them?

********

Sign up for the free, monthly Writer’s Knowledge Base newsletter for writing tips and resources and to be entered in our first giveaway. Details here.

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?

****

Sign up for the free, monthly Writer’s Knowledge Base newsletter for writing tips and resources and to be entered in our first giveaway. Details here.

Cristi Craig wrote a great post for the Write it Sideways blog called “The Dilemma of the Mother Writer.” In it, she gave an illustration of the tug of war she feels between writing and motherhood:

When I flipped through pictures that my four year old daughter took recently, I saw a heartbreaking pattern: me, wearing reading glasses while I worked on my laptop; me, at the island in the kitchen typing away on my laptop; me, serving as backdrop behind a portrait of her doll, sporting my laptop. It was a painful truth and a testament to the life of a mother writer. I am always stealing time to write.

I’m sure this is a story that resonates with any parent who feels that tug between work and family time.

I’m lucky that I’m able to stay at home and write. But I do have a lot to accomplish—both writing and promo. My goal each day is to finish everything on the computer by 2:00 (which is when my younger child gets off the school bus.) Sometimes I can accomplish this goal…sometimes not.

Over the years, I’ve developed strategies that I hope work for both the children and me:

I’ve noticed that sometimes the laptop creates a wall between me and the children. Sometimes I’ll be working in the same room with kids…they’re doing homework, I’m writing. If I sense that they might want to talk about their day or open up to me about something during their homework time, I’ll write on paper. Otherwise, the laptop seems to stop them in their tracks.

I try to share with them what I’m doing. I spend so much time on the laptop that I realized they must wonder what it was that I was so busy doing. I talk to them about my books, about promo, about blogging, etc. I try to involve them a little in the process by asking their opinions about different things—do they like a character’s name? What do they think about the book’s setting?

When the children are talking to me, I don’t look at the laptop. It makes it look like I think my writing is more important than they are…and I definitely don’t want to give that impression.

When I’m talking with them, I try not to think about anything other than our conversation. (And this is a tough one, because I’m easily distracted.) I do this by asking intelligent follow-up questions for what they’re telling me…instead of going “mmm.”

Still, I need to get work done. Instead of writing in the same room as the children (when I really need to write), and possibly getting irritated with interruptions—I just go write behind a closed door. I preface the writing session by telling the kids, “I’ve got to get some work done. I’m going to write for 25 minutes, then I can play cards/talk/read a book with you.” Then they know I haven’t just disappeared for hours (honestly, I can’t write for hours anyway.) When they were younger, I set a timer outside my door so they could see how much longer I was going to be unavailable.

Although this post is on juggling parenting and writing, it also applies to writing around other family members, too. (Well, to some degree. I can only imagine the look on my husband’s face, if I put a timer outside the door and told him to be quiet for 25 minutes!) How do you set parameters for your writing—respecting your writing time, but also respecting your family time and obligations?

*******************

Sign up for the free, monthly Writer’s Knowledge Base newsletter for writing tips and resources and to be entered in our first giveaway. Details here.