Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Aftermath....

I've been a published author for over a month now.  I feel almost desperate to write something new or finish one of the half-finished projects I have littering my hard-drive.

But I find that most of the time I have set aside for writing, gets taken up doing other things.  Obviously I want to sell copies of the book that's out, but I'm finding the publicity chores are taking up all the time I once used to write.

There are guest blog posts to prepare, interview questions to answer, book reviewers and book bloggers to contact and ask for reviews.  Somehow, that leads to me having little or no time to actually open a writing project and get stuck in.

I think part of the problem is that I'm on the other side of the world to most of the people I'm dealing with.  So if I send out emails in my evening, I get the replies in the morning (if I'm lucky).  And that hour and a half in the morning is my writing time.  But when I get to the computer and find 17 new emails blinking at me, guess what?  No writing gets done.

So I try writing in the evening, but that's the time I usually use for critiquing and beta reading other writers.  And at the moment I'm judging contest entries for a contest at the same time as trying to keep up with my regular critiquing.  Not to mention I'm expecting a friend's MS to land any day now for a beta read.

Do I just accept that maybe I won't get anything done on my new projects this month?  It would certainly make me feel better about not writing.  Or do I cut back on the promotional stuff I'm doing?  I'm not entirely sure than anything I'm doing is actually affecting sales in any significant way, so am I breaking my back for nothing?  But then if the book tanks, I'll blame myself for not doing more to push it.

Do any of you published authors out there have words of wisdom to offer me about this?  I feel guilty about calling myself a writer when I'm not writing...

3 comments:

  1. I can only tell you what I've experienced personally - my time is better spent writing that promoting. Which... I still have a hard time practicing, but time and again it proves to be true.

    I've heard one of the best things an author can do promo-wise is write more books. I squidge up my face and say "But then how will people know about them?" But even though it takes time, it's proving to be true. Everything else is too long for a blog reply, but write. You got into this business to tell stories, and you tell incredible stories, so work on telling more stories.

    Besides, I'm selfish, and an I want more Kate Larkindale books.

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  2. "Published". It's scary and cool at the same time. I wish I had some published-author advise, but alas, I haven't gotten there yet. Good luck finding your writing time. It looks like something is going to have to get dropped.

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  3. How about the day job?? If I didn't have to spend so much time there, I'd be sweet! Oh, but there's eating... I like to do that a couple times a day.

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