Where Did the Time Go?

 

Where does the time go? As authors, we like to think that we are in charge of our own time. That is seldom true, unless we publish independently. Even then we have deadlines ... self imposed deadlines that help us to stay professional, and not wander into the twilight zone of writing.

There are so many things that can claim the time of a writer. It is up to us to decide what is important, what is not, and where we want our time and focus to go. Social media is a very gray area ... how much  is going to bring us in readers/followers, and how much is overkill (or underkill, if we don't do it right)? How many pages do we need on Facebook? How many Twitter accounts do we need? How often should we tweet, and what should be say? Do we schedule our tweets to go out, or do we just send them out spontaneously? Do we play the #FF game? (I did, at first, and then dropped it.) 

Do we send out newsletters? Do our newsletters actually say anything? Are the newsletters converting into sales? How often do we publish a newsletter? How are we getting e-mail addresses for our newsletter? We need to do this in a manner that we reach people who are interested in our work, and will open the darn newsletter and read it! How often do we publish a book? Do we really need to publish more than one book a year? We are generally writing one book, promoting another book, and outlining a third book anyway. How thin can we stretch ourselves? 

Do we really need to go on blog tours? I mean, really! We write a guest post to fit into someone else's site. We keep track of the post, and respond to any comments made. Our face is put into focus for new readers, but how many are really going to convert into fans? Are we going to sell more books? Is this a good use of our time? For me, I have decided that no, it is not.

We don't need a ton of Twitter, Google + or Facebook followers. What we need are a few good followers that interact with us, like our material, and buy our books. It doesn't matter how many people "like" you  Facebook page. Look at how many of them are commenting on your posts, at how many of them are engaging with you. 

Blogging and blog hopping. I have several blogs on different topics. I send out one blog a week ... unless there is something that I really feel that I need to write about. 

What does this all boil down to? Whatever you do, do it with intent and purpose. If it doesn't look like it is working, and you have tried tweaking it ... let it go!

Take charge of your time!

(c) 2000 - 2013 Bonnie Cehovet