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ALL THE THINGS I NEVER KNEW I'D NEED TO KNOW
When I first envisioned being a writer, and a published one at that, I saw myself writing at my computer day in and day out with an occasional lunch with friends. I knew it wouldn’t be like J.B. Fletcher’s life on Murder She Wrote with her jetting off everywhere under the sun, and I certainly didn’t expect my neighborhood cul-de-sac to turn into a hotbed of murderous activity like Cabot Cove, Maine.
In the beginning what I didn’t know would fill a couple of volumes. It wasn’t all craft like POV glitches including head hopping, scene and sequel, character arcs, hooks, setting and all the wonderful—for want of a better word—stuff which goes into crafting a readable story.
Oh, no.
Here of the few things I soon discovered I needed to know:
Web design: Dark backgrounds or light—I must be in the minority since I prefer a dark background. But no red on black…please. My eyes are old, too, but for some reason white on black doesn’t bother me, although to make my web designer a touch happier, I go with the palest of grays for any font on a dark background. Then is the background too busy or too boring? Personally I prefer the background to stay in the background and not overwhelm what I’m trying to say or show. When I served as my chapter’s newsletter editor, I learned to use MS Publisher and after two years of that, I have a better idea about overall design. But my ideas about design come from my interior design background, not a journalistic or web design background.
HTML—what you say? Now I know the younger generation of authors must’ve grown up on html coding and I confess I’ve picked up minute bits and pieces of it as I’ve gone along. I can copy/paste code, too. I can do simple input to my FrontPage-based web site, but for any major changes, it’s up to my web designer.
Movie Producer: How in the heck would I have ever expected to become a movie producer and director, even on a small scale doing short book videos? Yeah, I do them, too. Not as professionally as some, but once I saw them, I had to stick my foot in that arena of online promotion.
Reviews: A very big part of promotion is the act of obtaining reviews. With my previous publisher, I did all the review requests and kept track of where and when I sent them and where or when I received them. For this I developed an Excel spreadsheet. I must confess I already knew how to use Excel, so that wasn’t one of the things I had to learn, but it helps to have a very organized place to track those review sites. Of course there are good reviews and bad ones. Bad ones are the ones where there isn’t a single phrase you can clip to post on your web site.
Promotion: There are chat loops, chat rooms, message boards, and forums. They all have different rules about when you can post, what you can post, and how often you can post. Again I have another spreadsheet where I document the sites where I do promo and keep track of how often, etc. There’s MySpace and Bebo and all those places where you can connect with hopefully readers, but I have a suspicion the majority of my “friends” are other authors. That’s okay, too, because other writers are almost as voracious readers as all the readers out there. Promotion is the most evil time management problem of all. I can easily spend my morning writing time doing promotion-related activities. And it’s almost impossible to stop once I get started It’s almost impossible to limit myself to one hour a day, but that doesn’t always work. No matter, promotion is vital to building a fan base.
Blogging: Now my word processing program doesn’t even recognize that as a word, but you’d better believe it’s a reality of the writer’s life. Some do it. Some don’t. Personally I like blogging. Not that very many people comment on it. So maybe it’s a waste of time, but it’s a chance to draw people to my blog, possibly my web site, and hopefully to my books. Besides, I’m a chatty person who likes to obsess over my ABC male soap hunks and Dancing With The Stars, which thankfully is only on for about four months twice a year. Occasionally I blog about the writing process.
And all I really want to do is…write. If I don’t write, I won’t have anything to submit to my publisher. No books. No fan base. And since I write sexy romantic suspense, instead of erotic romance or paranormal, I have to work harder to build that fan base. It’s a fact of life. It’s also a fact of life if I don’t post excerpts no one is going to get a taste of my voice and characterization.
I’m looking for tips on time management from authors who seem to manage to whip out book after book and do tons of promotion. I can learn from the pros. In my previous work life, I was focused and organized, so I know it’s possible to translate that to my writing life.
Marie-Nicole
http://marienicoleryan.com
Interesting post, Marie-Nicole. I’m also having problems in building a fan base since I write inspirational, mystery and mainstream. I feel like I spend a lot of time doing promo work when maybe I should be working on my new book instead.
And I love blogging but it takes time. I don’t get very many comments but when I do get some from readers, it is so worth it.
I’m sure the pros will give time management advice. That’s the great thing about being published by Samhain, there are always authors ready to give advice and support to the newbies.
I think you and all 500 of my MySpace author-friends want to know these magical tips!
Aha, since I read romantic suspense, but don’t write it I’m delighted to find you Marie-Nichole.
I wholeheartedly agree with what you say. The “other” things that a writer is expected to do are confusing, snatching time from writing and makes me somewhat grumpy and suspicious all that stuff is really necessary.
Another issue, after creating websites, the upkeep. I have been surfing author websites while trying to decide what I want. A surprising number of author pages, sit withering for months without changing and updating. No webpage is better than a webpage or blog that is never changed.
The nature of an artist or writer is to be turned inward, thinking, figuring, working on an interior landscape, and yet, our writing forces us to become adwomen, too.
After doing this for a little while now, I know my limits and strengths and play to them. I’m not a chatty person and loop jumping is hard for me, so I simply don’t do it anymore. I barely ever add to my blog, but do contribute to publisher blogs and drop comments at the blogs I visit. Paying for some ad space at one or two of the review sites is easy and requires nothing but a little cash outlay. I can do that.
But, overall, I’ve decided what I do best is write. Write more, write better, write longer works, write edgy, sexy stuff, and write intimate, emotional pieces. Write and write and release as much as possible, that’s my ad campaign.
Diane,
Add to my building a fan base worries that I may possibly need to worry about whether or not I’ll accumulate $2000 in advance and royalties in the next two years for one book. I certainly hope I do anyway, but now the pressure is building.
Alesia,
Oh, so true. So true.
Jackie,
Glad to have found you too, Jackie. I popped over to your blog and left a comment.
The secret to successful blogging is to blog often, and not always about news. If your blog is nothing more than a 24 hour newsletter, you’re going to have a snooze-fest. Readers like to know authors are people too, and I’ve quickly found that my everyday life, coupled with a bit of humor and perhaps a picture, captivates people to come back. I also have features on my blog such as the Hottie of the Week, Random Pic of the Day, that kind of thing. If people know you do a “feature” on the same day every week, no matter what it is, they’ll come back. Try to find your schtick.
Link to all your author friends. Ask them if you put a link back to their blog on your blog, would they be willing to link to you? A lot of readers click through the links on other blogs.
But aside from blogging, if you cannot remember when promo days are, when author days are, publisher chats, etc., buy yourself a dayplanner that’s strictly for your writing, nothing else. I’ve had to do this to remember scads of free promo, such as mailing bookmarks to other authors for cross-promo, publisher chats, genre days, all sorts of stuff. I just couldn’t remember it all. Now, I love it, because I can quickly write in there to remember to mail off my contracts or write a guest blog on someone else’s blog, that kind of thing. It REALLY helps.
Take a notebook with you wherever you go. Doctor’s office, kids’ Karate class, work, bed… I’ve found this can sometimes be the ONLY time I will ever get to write during the day. Sure, I’ll have to dictate the long-hand into the computer later, but some writing is better than no writing. I’ve pretty much stopped “reading” before bed, and just lay in bed writing in my notebook. DH wants me to go to bed with him, but I always wanted to keep on writing. The notebook in bed is the happy compromise, and much less clunky than a laptop (although I wouldn’t complain if I had one that worked… lol)
Anyhow, those are some of my time-saving tips on how to get everything done. Whew.
~~Becka
Bonnie,
Wonderful idea. Just write the best stories you can. I believe in that too, but I’m afraid not to do the rest, as well.
Rebecca,
Lots of great suggestions. Most I already do. My blog is more about ABC soap hotties than writing. I have links back to fellow authors. I track my chats, reviews, chat loop days, etc on a spreadsheet because my computer is either in my lap or on my desk—I have two. I don’t spend much time anywhere but home, since I’m a full time writer.
Thanks to everyone who posted.