Creating Comes First

We all know at this point that there’s a lot more to being a writer than just, you know, writing. Promotion takes time, you guys, a freaking lot of time. Cons and signings, events, ads, social media, cross-promotion with other authors. Given half a chance, these activities could take up my whole entire day.

If I let that happen, then I sure as hell hope the books that are out sell because I’d never write another one. And that would be a shame because I have a lot of ideas, you guys. I’m hoping to publish three more books this year alone. I mean, I want to be a writer to write. If I wanted to be a saleswoman, I’d have stayed in retail.

But I have to do all of this, don’t I? I mean, if I want my books to sell, I’ve got to get them out there. How is anyone going to read them if they don’t know they exist?

Yeah, I do have to advertise. I talk about my books at the end of my posts. I post on four social media accounts. I attend cons and plan signings. I do all of this social butterfly, come look at me, don’t you want to read this book I have here things they say indie writers are supposed to do. I have guest posts on other people’s sites and I host their guest posts.

So, how do I do it?

I actually don’t. I take all the freaking shortcuts I can find. I spend about half an hour a day on social media, and I do that while I’m watching tv with my kids. I spend one day a week working on business and promotional stuff. Anything that can’t be done in five minutes is done on that one day a week. And if I can’t get it done during the five hours my kids are in school, then it’s going to wait until next week. Do you know why?

Because if it doesn’t get done, I don’t care.

My word of the year, if you’ll remember from January, is Create. I’m spending this year focusing on Creating. So whatever it is, books, short stories or comic book scripts, I always want to be creating something new. So that comes first. Well, actually it comes third after my family and my own emotional well being. But it surely comes before social media obligations.

Six days out of the week, I do nothing more than fill up my Buffer account before devoting all other writing time to content creation or editing. I simply put it first, because that’s where it’s supposed to be.