Organization for a BETTER Writing Life

Yes, I just yelled ‘better’ at you. And yes, I know some of you subscribe to the “It’s an organized mess!” group. I know I spent the better part of 16 years thinking the same while the stacks of paper grew around me. However, the ‘organized mess’ really should be an ‘unorganized mess.’

Don’t believe me? How much time do you spend looking for things when you could be writing? Do you forget things because the paper you lost it on is lost in the craziness? For those who don’t have a dedicated writing space. How long does it take you to locate a paper when you sit down to write? Do you have to go to a different room to retrieve things you need?

It’s probably not surprising to most that writers and creative types aren’t the most organized person, after all, many of us appear flighty daydreamers to most people. It’s kinda part of the job description. It shouldn’t be a surprise that organizational systems that work for some don’t work for us. Our needs are as varied as any other business.

Streamlining one’s working life can go a long way toward better productivity and more writing time. Organization in your writing life can make it less stressful and better. Why? Because when you have a place for everything and everything is in it’s place (Oh! Just quoted my mom!), life is easier.

So my question is, what kind of organizational systems do you use to make work easier? Are you interested in learning to organize your writing and business life?

Guest Post: Gaining Exposure through Free Downloads of Your eBook

For new authors, a great deal of marketing is needed in order to gain popularity. If the public doesn’t know who you are, how are they to buy your book? As the Internet has made it easier for authors to publish their works, it has also made it easier to gain popularity from downloadable content such as eBooks. However, the marketing doesn’t stop at offering digital copies of your material. A great deal of work needs to be put in to gain the respect of the reading community. There are ways to help your reputation grow aside from physical appearances at book signings or ads on the Internet.

There have been many writers who have found a wondrous opportunity to promote their works in order to generate sales and acknowledgement. Online locations that offer eBooks to users, such as Amazon.com, allow the author to set the prices of the digital download. While some may be reluctant to drop the price to a certain degree, there is a great deal of logic to promoting a free download of your eBook. You don’t have to keep the digital content as free forever. You just need it to increase your notoriety.

Systems used by such companies as Amazon.com display eBooks that are the most popular. As free eBooks are downloaded quite regularly, these websites record the amount of times each own is accessed. The more times it has been downloaded, the popular the eBook becomes. After a certain amount of time, your once unknown eBook can rise to levels that are equal to some of the most popular authors in the world. Once this rating has been established, you simply change the book from being a free download to a retail copy. Theoretically, this will drive your eBook to make more money in the long run as its popularity has already been established.

Not every eBook can experience this kind of growth, however. Reviews and content will still play a pivotal role in how well the population accepts your material. If you produce a substandard eBook, you could still feel the brunt of negative reviews. As many eBook buyers take popular vote and consensus into consideration before spending money on the digital copy, your book could still be less valuable than you’d like.

Offering a free “limited time” download of your eBook is akin to the free samples you see at grocery stores. Although the download of an entire book is more than merely a sample, it helps create popularity. While reviews can help increase the sales of your eBook, it is the word of mouth aspect that can help propel your name as a competent writer. Multiple blogs dedicated to book reviews could display your work without you spending a single dime for marketing simply because someone really enjoyed the experience of reading the material.

If you think about the amount of money you spend on a marketing campaign, is it really that different than sacrificing the sales of your eBook for a few weeks? If the material is well written and accepted by many readers, the amount you sacrifice during your free download campaign could be small compared to how well the sales could do after driving the popularity up. Your goal is to promote awareness of your eBook, and what faster way is there than to offer a free digital copy?

_______________________________

Author Bio: 

Ken Myers is the founder of  http://www.longhornleads.com/ & has learned over the years the importance of focusing on what the customer is looking for and literally serving it to them. He doesn’t try to create a need, instead he tries to satisfy the existing demand for information on products and services.

But I want to Target my Readers

I love discussing writer related business with other authors and in my second business of cover design I get the chance often to talk about publishing and marketing. I was recently asked my opinion on audience targeting and how to do it. Ummmm…My advice was don’t until after the book is written. While you are going through the stages of editing and getting it ready for publication, when you have a firmer grasp of what the book is about, then it’s time to target your audience.

The author I was speaking with wanted to target their audience before they wrote the next book.

I’m not a big fan of audience targeting before you write the book. For whatever reason I have this image of an author in a mini-sub patrolling the Webseas, seeking out readers, and torpedo-ing their books in their direction. Some of these authors are targeting their genre audience, others every reader they find. I’m sure it works for some authors. As a reader, nothing annoys me more than authors and even readers who blast everyone in range with their “buy the book” message a million times. Aaahhh, let me think…will I buy the book…Um, not in a billion years. (Recent examples: Fifty Shades, Twilight, Harry Potter, Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Stephen King, Amanda Hocking….and the list goes on.)

They might be great authors and their following seems huge. But I’ve heard about the book so much I already know what people liked, didn’t like, how it ends, and what was different in the books from the movie. Ok, can you tell how much it annoys me. It’s also a post for another day. Today I want to discuss ways to target your readers. And I’m still seeing the writer in a sub.

Writing for your audience is important if you want to sell books. If you are willing to place your marketing and sales before your creativity. However, there are good and bad ways to do it. If you don’t like the billionaire romances, don’t write them just because they’re popular. If you like Star Trek, create your own Universe and people, don’t copy and give them different names.

1) Decided who is your perfect reader is.

What I mean by this is who are you writing for and who is the type of reader you want to read your books. You can work up a character profile of who this reader is as some book marketing gurus suggest. I cringe at the very idea. I’d never look at it after the fact.

I would suggest picking a reader you already have and respect, even if that reader is imagined, and gear your writing toward them and hope there is more than one out there. Although the better option would be to write what you like and make that perfect reader you. Yeah, I know you are an individual and oh, so different from everyone else, but really, the best reader for your books are readers like you. In my opinion you are your perfect reader and you should be writing books you would enjoy reading. There are more people out there like you.

2) Research your readers needs and wants.

You can browse the top 10 bestsellers in your chosen genre or genres, research the common threads that make readers love them, and compile a list from those common traits. You can then use those common threads in your writing. If you do this, please only use the ones that you are comfortable with.

If you are uncomfortable writing about incest, James Bond like spies, epic fantasies, cheating spouses, serial killers, or any of the other dozen topics, then don’t. Writing something you aren’t comfortable with will only come out in your writing as awkward  and stilted. Besides that it won’t make you happy and it can even bring down your confidence and respect in yourself. Not! what you want to do.

3)  Make the book unique

Yes, vampire and shifter novels have been done to death, however, if you add your own unique writing style, author voice, and spin to it, then you’ve made it unique enough to attract readers to it when you start promoting it. I’m not a vampire fan, but I love Joleene Naylor’s vampire novels. My latest book had creatures that were like vampires and shifters in it. No, I wasn’t writing to a specific market it’s just how the story unfolded. It also didn’t take place on Earth. It had a unique spin to it that has attracted readers although I have yet to market it. (Bad me!)

If you write a book because it is the newest craze or trend, you better make your book stand out from the rest. If it is just like every other book out there, then you are writing for a limited audience. They will eventually move on to the next craze and the book you wrote will be left behind.

4) Market and Promote your book.

There are two ways to do this. Jump on all the forums, popular hangouts, guest post on blogs, and start talking about your book to everyone that will listen and make friends with the hope that they will become fans of your book or at least buy the book because they like you. Or go the other route and blog about your book a few months before it comes out (on your blog or guest post on others), giving readers interesting tidbits and story samples, see if reviewers are interested in reading and reviewing your book, release the book, and start writing the next book.

I like the second approach personally, which is probably why I make just enough to enjoy my success and my writing career still. I let people come to me and readers suggest the book without guilt tripping them into doing it. I also don’t have the added stress that ‘over-the-top’ marketing brings and I’m happier with my writing career. All pluses for me.

________

So there are my tips to targeting your reader. Most of them that I don’t follow myself because I’d rather write the next book which seems to work better for me.

Guest Post: Tips on How to Utilize Social Media for Content Distribution Without Being Spammy

The Internet today is mostly all about getting your research, marketing, social and business done. With this said, you cannot take the opportunity to spread the word about your products and services for granted. Sure, you can maximize the chance through mobile content delivery but not to a point that your content and updates sound and look gibberish and spammy. In this article, we will look at five tips on how to utilize social media for content distribution without being spammy.

1. Never Post Without a Target

The first thing to do is to plan which ones you are targeting as a market. The next is to reach those targets and speak to them. Join their discussions and ask them to follow you on social media. Once they become your fans or followers, do not tag them randomly or mention their usernames just to drop your sales pitch. Users never want to hear news and promos obtrusively. Make them relate to your brand more but not through “brute force.”

2. Encourage Engagements

When you over publish self-promotional posts and don’t provide any useful information to your followers, you will be more likely to be marked as spam. However, when you get your readers’ attention with your posts and make them interact by posting comments and sharing your articles, others will view your profile with more respect. You will be seen as an authority. The more engaging your posts are, the more you reflect on your personality and the more you will be accepted by the public. So get people to talk about your brand and value your followers’ responses in social media.

3. Post Unique Content

You can share articles that promote your products and services. But you cannot do this and repeat sharing the same ones all the time. To capture the interest of your audience without looking spammy, you have to generate content that is related to your niche. For example, if you are selling technical gadgets, posting reviews and comparisons will help viewers decide which one they would buy. You can also post how-to articles like maintaining hardware, updating software and accessorizing the gadgets.

4. Keep Posts Relevant

If you are marketing contents using Facebook, for instance, make sure not to post status updates about your personal life which are not any relevant to your business. Spam is when they receive unsolicited updates from the channel or account they have subscribed from. Posting too much of your personal updates would make them think like they have spam in their newsfeeds. Think like a consumer! They are highly likely to be interested in your products and business services alone and not about you per se. They might unsubscribe immediately after a consecutive number of days. What’s worse is that they might report you as an abusive user and you get totally kicked out of the social networking site.

5. Check Your Spelling and Grammar

When you have too many spelling and grammar errors, most people would view your content as either copied or jumbled from other sites or just take it as a joke and mark it later as spam. When you produce content on social media, you should share something of actual value. Informative posts should be written well with no nonsense sentences in the middle.

 Conclusion

Social networking sites are largely becoming a favorite spam target recently, since many have recognize the power and influence companies would achieve from them. As a digital marketer, you have to take these points seriously to not appear like a spammer in social media.

____________________________

Author Bio:

Jamaica Sanchez is a Website Auditor with solid experience. She has been an advocate of cloud computing for improved work efficiency and performance. She also has a passion in dancing, cooking and playing golf. Follow her on Twitter or Google+.

Writing for yourself First

I was reading on a forum today where an author asked how he could get the joy of writing back. He was worn out and bored with everything he started. The thought of writing another word was akin to pulling his own teeth with a pair of pliers.

As I read through the comments it became very clear to me, despite all the great suggestions given on how to help him, that his true problem wasn’t writer’s block or burn out. It was gearing his writing toward what he thought readers wanted from him. It was suppressing his own creative voice in an attempt to give his audience what they wanted. And it was boring him to death.

You see, he loved his daily writing pages. He enjoyed warm up stage before the critic’s voice came in to kill the fun. He still daydreamed new pitfalls for his characters.

It made me start to wonder, how many writers start with the joy of writing only to lost the passion? How many authors gear their writing toward what they think readers want? How many writers are writing books they hate or would never read themselves because it sells well? How many of you are doing this right now?

Stop it. Stop it right now.

The best part of writing is writing what you enjoy for the fun of it. It’s what makes work a little less work-y. It’s what makes the right readers love your books. Passion in your writing voice will carry the book far longer than formulaic writing.

Guest Post: How Self-Publishing is Made Easy and Effective by Jasmine Roy

How Self-Publishing is Made Easy and Effective

Are you an author aspiring to undertake the big challenge of self publishing your book? Then it is indeed a great challenge to put your own efforts and dedication to publish your creation. Several authors, worldwide, try their hands at self publishing as it allows them considerable freedom to exhibit their research and skills. Also, many authors who want to have full control over their written work and are particular with the artistic expressions opt for self publishing their book. While some go for it since this kind of publishing involves less expenses. If you intend to self publish your written book, then you need to have knowledge and take charge of the complete process.

As a matter of fact, self publishing a book is very stressful process since you are in charge of every step involved in the process. You are supposed to be responsible for everything right from writing your book to marketing it. However, this process has become easy by following some guidelines, in the recent times. It is important that you should never get discouraged and keep in mind your target and profits that you are expecting from publishing your book.

How to Self Publish

1. The first essential step for successful self publication of your book is to write your manuscripts effectively. Be it a novel, short story book, poetry book to memoir create it in one specific electronic manuscript. Insert relevant pictures of high resolution into the manuscript. The self publishing companies do not impose additional charges for inserting pictures in manuscripts. Make use of alignment tools to align and indent text. This will help you to properly format your written work.

1. If you are about to publish a hard copy of your written book, then you should first ensure that your book is fully complete, properly edited and also effectively proofread. Make efforts to get contacts of reputed freelance editors and proofreaders who can efficiently do this task at a fixed rate. One of the most important things you need to give your book is a catchy title that can draw the reader’s attention. If you happen to have any contacts with graphic designers or some good cover designers make use of their specialization in order to design the cover of your written book. Or else you can even hire a professional freelancer for this if it fits in your budget.

1. Be it a comic book or a children’s book, including good designing in your book will greatly help you to win the half battle of self publishing a book. Once you have got edited manuscript with outstanding cover page, contact good printing services for quotations. The rate of printing will differ depending on the number of copies you tend to order and the quality of the printed book that you are publishing in the market. You can even try to contact vanity presses that will offer you an excellent option of print on demand. This option will not have any interference with the content of your book. One of the most important things you need to take care of is to get ISBN numbers for your written books. You should keep in mind that these numbers can only be purchased in blocks of ten and not according to per book.

1. Invest efforts to self publish your book by making use of the internet. You can approach a great resource of self publishing companies over the web. Such a resource will also offer you the companies that can translate your written book in any desired language so that people can find books written by you in language they are comfortable with. Such companies even reduce the expenses involved in printing and related expenses and handover to you the effective amount that equals 80% of the total amount earned from publishing your book. In the modern times, with the e-book gaining good popularity, self publishing your book over the web makes a good sense since it tend to reach greater number of readers, worldwide. This is even a beneficial option for people looking for self publishing their books for free without shelling out even cent from their pocket.

1. Last but not the least, while self publishing your written book you might have to face some prejudices. Keep in mind that you should not get adversely affected due to it. Several popular authors, once upon a time, even had faced rejections before being selected by an efficient mainstream publisher. Moreover, self publishing is a great platform for the authors, who have been facing constant rejections, to display before the world their unique writings.

Thus, with the advent of internet, technology and good resource of self publishing companies, self publishing a book has become quite convenient.

______________________________________

Author Bio :- Jasmine Roy is a expert writer with rich experience in writing books, blogs, and articles on a wide range of topics. Through her years of writing and publication she has come to believe that Pubmatch is a great resource of book publishing companies for writers all over the world. She has complete faith in the book publishing companies over here as they offer various exclusive services such as offset printing services, valuable and up-to-date information in the favor of the book authors and also allow them to have a creative control on various aspects of publishing and promoting their books.

What Type of Writer are you?

Last December I come to that point in my blogging career where I don’t know what to blog about anymore. Maybe it is because of who I am, or maybe I burned myself out after 7 years of constantly blogging. Either way, my lack ideas gave me a way out reason to take an extended vacation from blogging…and social media…and basically everything online except lurking on blogs and reading articles. During those four months I realized something. Actually I realized a bunch of somethings about myself, but I want to focus one of those here.

The Introverted Writer. 

This lead to thinking about the Extroverted-Introverted Writer and the Introverted-Extroverted Writer (Yes. There is such writers out there.) and how their marketing and promoting techniques would be different.

Every author/writer, just like every person, is different. Some of us aren’t made to interact in the world, at least not well and no amount of training help will change that. It’s not only uncomfortable for us, but it’s awkward and weird for others, and possibly detrimental to our careers. There are others out there, of which I’m not one, who are perfectly suited to be salespeople and interact with the populace at large just fine (Amanda Hocking?).

As self-published writers we are told that we need to market and promote our books through blogging, social media, guest posting, etc., etc., etc. Some articles tell us we have to do it, but give no directions on how to do it. And, yes, some of us need instructions on how to deal with the outside world. Others give directions on how they did it and why their method would work for you. Um…Usually it doesn’t help. While others tell you to do it, give directions and disclaimers, and unleash us on the world. I cringe at the idea.

Introverts and Extroverts

Writers for the most part are considered pure introverts. But that isn’t always the case. There are different levels of Introversion and Extroversion. You can be both an extrovert and an introvert.

Introverts are more likely to:

• Be absorbed by their thoughts and ideas
• Seek quiet and calm
• Think before speaking and even over-think and not speaking
• Draw energy from their inner world (ideas, emotions, and impressions), the external world drains them
• Proceed carefully when meeting people and avoid crowds
• Lose sight of what others are doing
• Participate in selected activities
• Not offer ideas freely and wait to be asked their opinions
• Reflect and act cautiously

Extroverts are more likely to:

• Talk out their ideas and thoughts
• Energized by the external world
• Seek out others to energize themselves
• Love to meet and talk to people
• Participate in the activities that offer
• Rash and sometimes reckless (don’t always think through thought or actions)
• Offer ideas and advice freely, without being asked

I’m sure some of you are looking at the lists and thinking, I do this and this but not that. This will help you figure what kind of writer you are, your strengths and weakness, and where your efforts would best serve you.

The Extroverted-Introverted Writer

This might seem contrary to what many people think when they think of a writer, but there are a few out there. My uncle just happens to be one of them. Rather be hanging out and doing things then writing, although he has his bouts of writing. The Extroverted-Introverted Writer has more extroverted traits than introverted ones.

If this is you, congratulations, the whole entrepreneur thing won’t be so hard for you. The business world of promotion will probably be easier for you to navigate and enjoy because you like to talk to other writers and readers about writing, publishing, books, and anything else on your mind. You’ll probably see the rewards of your efforts quicker. However, be wary of too much promoting and not enough writing. The next book is important. So balance your marketing efforts with your writing efforts.

The Introverted-Extroverted Writer

This type, like the one above, can be a great combination of writer and entrepreneur. Their list of traits are based more on the introverted side which can be a benefit with their extroverted traits. If this is you, you’ll probably be active on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, blogging, trading emails, etc. Many of these writers are prolific writers and make money from their efforts because they balance the promotion with the writing. Long term they do better because they have the backlist to back up their promoting efforts.

The Introverted Writer

Most or all the listed traits on the Introverted list above and very few to none of the extroverted list apply to the Introverted Writer,  You might find little value or desire to blog or be active on social media, you might even be forcing yourself to do it. Promoting yourself is like pulling teeth and you tire of it easily. Being online is a drain of energy.

If this is you then a better use of you time and efforts might be directed toward writing the next books, with occasional updates to your blog and social networks. It’s a slower process, but one that might be more beneficial to you since the more books you have out the greater chance of being discovered by readers. You might also have greater success with website pages that show an inside look into your books rather than a blog.

As always, I love to hear from you. If you want to add to the discussion, comment below, and if you liked this post, please share with others.

Please share this with others:

Ran across this post and loved Cathrine’s advice. If you are thinking of self-publishing or already have, this is a wonderful article with lots of great information. You all should read it! 😀

Please share this with others:

Found this in my inbox and thought Michelle Fox had some great insight into the writing advice “write and then write some more.”

One Handed Writers

Hello! I’m filling in for Michelle Cary today. Don’t worry, it’s okay, my name is Michelle too. It’s like we’re twins or something.

Anyway, today I wanted to revisit some of the advice I heard a lot when I first started writing. Being very earnest abut the whole thing, I attended several conferences early on as I bumbled my way through this writing thing, believing I was undiscovered hot shit.

Imagine my surprised when all anyone ever really said was ‘write and then write some more.’

Well, duh, I thought. I know that. What I really wanted to know was the inside scoop of becoming a writer who could land an agent followed by a juicy publishing deal. Surely there was more to it than ‘write.’ I wanted concrete, inside scoop advice and all I got was a Zen-like round robin of ‘write, write, and write.’

It annoyed me.

You know…

View original post 446 more words

Blogging, Social Networking, Answering Emails – Hey, when do I get the time to write?

Are you blogging? How often? Once a week, 3 times a week, every day?

Are you on social media? What ones? Are you posting every hour? Once a day? Are you talking about about what you ate for lunch? Or a link to your latest book?

How about answering emails? Are you answering them, or ignoring them? Do you read through all the email you get from newsletters and blog subscriptions or do you find yourself deleting them?

Now that you’ve answered some of those questions and I’m sure asked some of your own, here’s another: When do you get the time to write? Are you writing regularly?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d bet money that most of you are busy people with a day job or two, family, kids, and/or other commitments to take up your valuable time–like food, friends, and sleep. So fitting writing and book marketing into an already full schedule isn’t so easy. But it can be done. I’m going to share with you one way to help you.

The 80/20 Rule

First, I want to mention the 80/20 rule. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s basically 80% of your time should be on Marketing and 20% writing and other business related work. I’ve also heard some people say that the 80% is all business related work  that is not writing including marketing and the 20% is writing only.

Now some of the writing/publishing gurus tell you that you have to do this to succeed as an author, if you read authors like Dean Wesley Smith you’ll find his approach is very different. I’m going to suggest that you spend 80% of your time writing new fiction for your backlist, 10% of your time researching and book setup such as editing, rewriting, and setting it up for publishing, and 10% of your time on business related work like marketing, blogging, and emails. Before anyone protests, yes, it’s a slower process to making money, but if you aren’t writing, editing, and publishing new work then social media and blogging are doing you no good.

Hey, this is Ruth here. Stephannie’s letting me add my two cents to the post, so here it is. The important thing to remember is that you want to build a solid foundation.  Once you build a fanbase (even a small one), you want to get more books to that fanbase.  Why will someone keep coming to your site if you don’t have something new coming soon?  While it’s good to reach new readers, you shouldn’t neglect offering something new to your current ones.  

People get so hung up on authors who made it big like Amanda Hocking, but what they don’t remember is that she had a backlist already out there when she went into the social networking part of her career as a writer.  She didn’t just write one book and keep marketing it.  There are some authors who hit it big on one book, but if they can’t get the next one out there, then how will they satisfy their current fanbase?   Will you sell like Amanda Hocking if you have a backlist and social network like crazy?  The odds are against you.  We’re not promising that.  I have a little over 40 books total published, and I’m nowhere near making Amanda Hocking sales.  But I do know I wouldn’t have gotten to where I did if I never wrote the next book.  Plus, I started writing because I loved creating stories.  Little writing and all social media would ruin my joy.

This leads us to the second point…

Don’t Neglect your Writing

Writing is the most important aspect of business, your book is the life blood of your career. It should be your main focus. It’s why I suggest focusing 80% of the time you have on writing.

Now I’m not the most productive writer or as self-disciplined as I would like to be. I love researching and reading stuff on the Internet. I’ve also gotten in the habit of opening my emails in the morning when I start the day. Once I finished checking emails, reading blogs and newsletters, sending or answering requests for guest posts and book reviews, answering emails and comments, writing a (daily?) blog post, leaving a meaningful comments on blogs, interacting on my favorite social networks, updating my website, etc., I’d lost a valuable chunk of time from my day. And lets face it, if we aren’t writing that book or the next book after that, then all the marketing and promoting we do on social networking and blogs won’t help.

My word count goal for the last few months has been about 300 words throughout an 8 hour day. Horrible, I know. I decided I needed a change this and recently downloaded a productivity app I’d heard of called Cold Turkey. This app doesn’t allow you to access certain sites and you can add your time wasting websites to it. I highly suggest it and I get nothing from if you download it.

Since I like to write in the mornings, each night after I finish working on business for the day, I set the app up for the next day. I can still access research sites I need, but everything else is closed to me. Which means I get more writing done in a day. I’ve been averaging about 800-1000 words in a 4 hour day. I’m hoping for more when I get into the groove of things.

Ruth: What I started to do is limit the days I’ll respond to blog, Facebook, and Twitter comments.  I take 3-4 days a week to answer them.   I’ll do it less often if I’m especially busy.  I’m not as active on Facebook or Twitter as I used to be in terms of interacting with people, but I do link up blog posts to those places.  Linking blog posts can help you social network with no extra effort on your part.  That’s why I like to set up my Twitter and Facebook accounts to WordPress to link automatically on those sites.  I hit publish or schedule to publish, and WordPress does the work for me.  I also link my blog posts (from my author blog) to Goodreads.  I will share a blog post I’ve done for a deleted scene or inspiration for the book or sample scene to Pinterest.  These are time savers for me.  I love those share buttons at the bottom of the blogs.

I also love those share buttons and suggest that everyone who writes blogs and have websites install them on their website and leads into my last point.

Don’t Neglect your Author Platform

Please don’t neglect your author platforms to carve out more writing time, that’s not the point I was trying to make above. Your author platform is very important, not as important as the next book, but a close second. Why? Because your website, Twitter, Facebook, other social media sites, and blogs are your way of telling the world, both readers and fans, that you are writing a book. It’s a way to get them excited about what you are publishing and it’s counterproductive to do a disappearing act to write. It can set back your marketing efforts.

What I am suggesting is plan you platform activities carefully. I’ll use my efforts as an example.

After I finish my writing for the day, I check my emails, reading through and answer those that need to be answered. Those from fans, people wanting to guest post, answering comments on my blog and other blogs, and answering questions from authors who need book cover designs done. I wait for Saturday to read through blog posts and newsletters. Since I find social media distracting, I wait for the blog muse hit and spend a day writing blog posts and tweets. I don’t schedule them ahead of time because I like to read through them one last time before they go live. I spend about 10 minutes in the late morning and evening on Twitter (posting tweets, retweeting, talking to people, etc), about 10 minutes on Facebook (updating my status and talking to others), and about 30 minutes rereading and publishing blog posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Once a month I like to update my website, though since me website and blog are one, every time I post I’m updating it too. LOL

I’m hijacking this post again. I’m not as organized as Stephannie on this one.  I love her idea, though.  It might be helpful to have a timer nearby.  Ten minutes on Twitter, Facebook, or another social network site is easy and doable.  The problem comes in when you get sucked into looking at pictures or reading articles that look interesting (this is where I end up spending a lot of time that takes away from my writing).  If there’s an interesting article off Twitter (a lot of good ones come from there, esp. ones that help authors), I suggest marking them as “to read” when you schedule time to do it.  (And this is all stuff I am going to mark down to do since my approach has been lacking in this area.  :D)