Tuesday 29 May 2012

Back in the Saddle/Time Management

hi all
Well, having had some much deserved and needed beauty sleep post promo, I then found myself still tweeting like a mad thing. Not as much as Fri-Sun of the promo, but still a lot. And I was preparing some interviews and replying to new followers and trying to work out optimal sales periods and best times to tweet without driving everyone mental or inundating them.
BUT, now I am writing again!! Yay! Yippee!! What a rush! I hadn't written for three solid weeks. I've been trying to do it for about a week now, but have been reading, doing housework and all other rubbish that gets in the way. But last night I said to myself, writing is to be the new first thing in the morning activity and I cranked out 3000 words today. So am really chuffed.  Plus it makes me so ridiculously happy that I want to dance round the room.
Am going to try to stick to my new rule from now on, as I actually want to have The Dating Game out sooner rather than later. Also, I realised how much I missed my new characters. Anton in particular is a sweetheart, albeit a sexy one...

Getting Back in the Saddle ties in very appropriately with the age-old and much dreaded Time Management. Now, I am Queen of Lists, Queen of Spreadsheets and Queen of Planning. It's actually quite a large kingdom I have!  But no amount of writing down your good intentions will make them happen. YOU have to make them happen.  So every day, rather than say, 'I need to do this', I am going to go back to my old Sales background and say, 'What must I do today or I will be shot?'  Once I've cleared those tasks, I can start on the rest. 

It's a very difficult call. We, as writers think, and obviously there is some truth in this, that we need to tweet, promote and advertise to generate interest.  However, and as other authors have shared with me, sometimes when you've had enough and can't tweet anymore or are sick of updating Facebook or whatever non-writing activity it is you're engaged in, you sell more! I know, it's warped, unfair, makes no sense, but it happens and has in fact happened to me today so far - fingers crossed it continues! So, I am going to take a very good author friend's advice and do less marketing for a bit and more writing (to be honest that wouldn't be difficult).

I think - and there IS no magic formula - that we have to identify the percentage of our time we wish to spend on our novels and split it up into writing (the major chunk), tweeting and other advertising, interviews, where appropriate and things like admin (following, unfollowing, sales figures, etc) and try as far as humanly possible to stick to those percentages.

I'm not going to discuss building platforms or Amazon algorithms, as much has already been written on this of late. Suffice to say, I am aware of these topics and you need to be too!

Anyway, that's my tuppence-worth for today.  Am off to see what Anton and Gill are up to....
Sooz

Sign of the Times is available here for UK buyers - http://amzn.to/GKqZGd & for US/other (.com) - http://amzn.to/IYN0Fc

5 comments:

  1. So right about sometimes having sales when we HAVEN'T been tweeting for hours! Glad you're getting into writing mode again - I am about to - then it will be 2 hours a day on Twitter ONLY! yes, yes, it will!

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  2. I admire your organizational abilities, Sooz! I do try to allot a certain amount of time each day for different things, but as Robert Burns said: "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley."

    Oh, and to give you the flip side on promotion - I've found that when I do no promotion, my sales dwindle down to nothing. I have to be out in the cyberworld a couple times a week, doing interviews, writing articles, connecting with authors/bloggers, participating in events, or I just don't see the sales numbers I like. I've come to the conclusion that promotion will be an ongoing thing for me! And that's okay, because I do enjoy doing it (most of the time. :)

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  3. hi Tracie, organisation is always a WIP. Love that you quoted Burns. I used to live in Ayr, where Burns is from! I think yours, Terry's and my own experience show us that it's all random & that the only thing we can do is keep plugging away and diversify our efforts as much as possible, which I know we all do. thx for your comments Sooz

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  4. Re what Tracie said - Tracie, Susan and I are both paranoid about not doing promotional stuff EVERY SINGLE DAY.... my sales only started to take off when I started to do so. For hours. All over the place. Sometimes, I even get time to write, too!!

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