I've heard a lot about promoting and how many hours a day you should do it. If writing is your career, and you're not Stephanie Meyer or JK Rowling, you should be out there promoting for hours every day.
I treat writing as my career of course, even though I haven't made a dime yet. (My first book release is May 15th and hopefully I'll have a few more soon as well.)
In between play time and learning time with my daughter, I spend time checking email, reading, writing, editing, and promoting. What takes the most time?
Promoting! Hands down.
I can't keep up with it. There are blogs everywhere! Everyone has one, and everyone wants you to join and actively participate in theirs. It is survival of the fittest. I join those who ask me to but usual only visit a few a day to see what is going on. Then I check the emails only to delete nearly everything because I just don't have the TIME to read every promo or excerpt.
(This is a good time to mention catchy title lines!) I don't even open an email unless the title grabs me in some way. Out of the average 300-400 emails per day I receive from various Yahoo groups, I open about 10.
I feel like a busy agent who still has their submissions open but no real time for a new client. LOL
I know I'm missing out on some awesome books but there's nothing I can do.
We are certainly selling to ourselves though, aren't we? Authors marketing to other authors, which is awesome, but very time consuming.
I join groups only to get 10 emails from the same person who is also in all of the groups and promoting to each one simultaneously. GAhhh! That totally gums up my inbox!
Most of the time, I'm too terrified to post in any group. There are just too many groups that will ban you if you flub it. It has to say promo or excerpt and the rating. (Okay, that is easy enough.) "you can only post on this group on fridays, this group on wednesdays, and this group on thursday afternoons when it isn't raining!)
Pretty much my promo time is spent sifting through my emails to figure out if it is a specific author or pub house day or a free for all. It is quite time consuming.
Of course I can pay someone anywhere between 100.00 dollars and 700.00 dollars to do my promoting for me!! If I were making money enough to do that, I think I'd be able to do my own promoting on word of mouth alone!
If I had money to blow, sure, I'd do it. But I can't. Like JK Rowling pre-sell, I haven't a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out and I have a daughter counting on me not to spend money I don't have. lol
So it is back to doing what I've been doing. Sticking my nose in where I can get it and hoping I don't get banned from a group for messing up or yahoo swallowing my email for a few days and spitting it out on an inappropriate posting day.
People who write and have jobs and have kids...I have no idea how they do it. Playing with my daughter and writing and editing and promoting sucks up a full day for me and when I wake up, I start all over again.
Yay!
Haha.. best of luck promoting yourself. May we all find the day when promoting is easier and fun.
Allure
1 comment:
You about summed up why I go on no mail (special notices only) for most of the promo & chats loops I belong to, and only turn it to individual mail when there are specific chat days that fit my subgenre. I've got enough e-mail from RWA chapter loops (I do belong to quite a few chapters), and I don't need to shift through more. Hell, when I turn LRC on for GBLT chat days, my inbox fills with hundreds of e-mails in one day from that one loop alone. And that's with me trying to keep on top of them, and read them. sigh.
Yeah, promo can easily SUCK up all your time. My strategy has been to pick a few loops, and only promo on theme days, when I know I'll be able to reach more people who may be receptive to my books. I'm sure I'm missing out on lots of promo ops, but it all boils down to available time.
Good luck! Only a few days left until your first book releases!! :) Getting excited yet?
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