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My Mistakes and Procrastinated Bits

April 30, 2014 / Business of Writing, Writing Tips / 27 COMMENTS

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraigfile8851246481245

The last time I ran a post on mistakes I’d made, it helped illuminate areas I’d fallen behind on so that I could stick them on my calendar as to-dos.  I’m hoping that will be the same today, too (some things can’t really be fixed, but can serve as a warning to others).

Here we go:

Not making sure I’m updating all the pages in my website.  Embarrassingly, a reader emailed me on this.  She wanted to see immediately, on my site’s home page, when I had an upcoming release.  She’s right—that’s really the point of the site.  I had the information on my books page, but the welcome page is a bit better.  Plus, I hadn’t updated that page often, thinking I’d left it as a static generic welcome.  Not so…it listed “recent releases” from a year ago. 

Not setting up PayPal/e-commerce/a way to sell ebooks on my site. And I’m still not there yet.  I keep hearing this is an easy/smart thing to do on our website (see Savvy Writers’ post, “How to Sell Your Books From Your Own Website.”)

Not setting up Amazon Affiliate links.  It’s kind of silly that I haven’t, considering that I always have links to my books here and others’ books.  Problogger Darren Rowse has a post explaining the benefits: “The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with the Amazon Affiliate Program.”

Being slow to send newsletters (see last post—I’m working on this).

Wasting valuable time figuring out how to do something when I’d have been better served paying someone to take care of it.  I am somewhat technical in that I know enough to be dangerous with nearly everything.  This encourages me to keep tinkering with things that I really have no business working on.  That time would be better spent writing.  For me, it’s much better to hire someone to help with website design, book formatting, etc.

Not saying no enough.  I’m not the only one in this boat, am I?  I’m getting better—I can say no in email and on the phone.  It’s the in-person bit that I still struggle with.

Being slow to host my blog on my website. As Thomas Umstattd explains in his post “7 Secrets for Amazing Author Websites”for AuthorMedia: “(Websites with integrated blogs) get more traffic because blogs posts are more likely to be shared on social networks than static content. Blogs also boost your rankings on Google. Each blog post is a chance to get Google points to rank high in searches. Think of it as a lottery ticket. The more blog posts you write the bigger chance you have of hitting it big.” At least I’m here now.

Not making my content work harder for me earlier.  I’ve mentioned this before.  But instead of focusing 100% on creating new content, we should remember that the content we’ve already got can go on sale in different formats: print and audio, for instance.  I’d just offered digital ebooks of my self-published books for a long while…and now I receive regular income by publishing my content in other formats.

Setting up separate Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads identities for my pseudonym.  I’m not sure how much time I thought I had, but this was a clear miscalculation. Not only that, I really just needed to promote everything through my actual name.

Where I’ve done better:

Reserving my name on various social media whenever the Next Big Thing comes out. Even if I have no plan at the time to engage on the platform.

Knowing my strengths and weaknesses and saying no to projects and editors/publishers when I’m asked to do something I’m not great at.

Keeping to a schedule.

Not rushing my self-publishing.

Doing things I don’t enjoy but know to be good for visibility…like the occasional giveaway on Goodreads.

So there we have it.  Hope that listing some of my missteps might help others avoid them. What kinds of things have you learned as a writer? Things you’ve done right? Things you haven’t?  What have you procrastinated on?

Image: MorgueFile: jdurham

  1. Google points! Like Brownie points.
    Getting my own name for all my sites and email was something I did right.
    I still haven’t set up an author page with all foreign Amazon sites though.

    1. Alex–That’s a huge one…getting our name on our sites.

      The Amazon author page for the foreign sites took me about 30 minutes, so not too bad of a time investment, when you can find some time (I know how you’re already pulled in lots of directions, though).

  2. Elizabeth – Thanks for sharing some of the things you’ve had to learn to do. They’re such good reminders to all of us of how important those details can be. I had to do a lot of that a couple of years ago when I changed my profile pic and my blog host. Both involved going through all of my web haunts and making sure my blog link was updated and the profile pic was accurate. You’d think that would be easy, but did I remember all of my places? No *sigh.* And readers do notice those things.

  3. Great blog–I like the idea of posting what I call “nagging problems” as a nudge to deal with them. I have floundered with consistent blogging, and I know that hurts my brand. “Make a blog calendar” has been on my to-do list way too long. I added a weekly newspaper column instead, which shouldn’t negate the blog. I’ll give you a piece of advice that helps me say “no”: “When you say ‘no’ to one thing, you say ‘yes’ to something else.” Thanks for your tips. Judy Christie

    1. Judy–I’ve found that when I work with an editorial calendar for my blog, it really does go a lot more smoothly (and takes me less time to write a post because I already know what I’m planning to write). Very good idea.

      Thanks for the tip for saying no! I like that one. :)

  5. Once you have the funds for it, letting go of control and hiring good help is a game-changer. Last year we paid out more to assistants and vendors than ever before.

    We also had our largest net income ever.

    That change, letting go of work better suited to others, is the primary reason I get to write full time now. Otherwise I’d be spending my days tinkering with fiddly bits others could do as well or better or faster.

    Whet I’m NOT doing is getting up at the same time every day, keeping to a schedule. It’s a powerful help for writing consistently, and I know I need to do it.

    1. Joel–I totally understand….it’s not easy dragging myself out of the bed at 4:45. And I’ve had insomnia twice the past week, so it *really* hasn’t been fun. But then I get to start my day out with a win (completing my goal) and that gives me a wonderfully smug feeling the rest of the day.

      I’m with you on delegating fiddly stuff, though. It can take up *so* much time otherwise.

  6. I’m not far enough along to be considering paying someone else to take care of certain tasks for me, but when I am I’ll have to make a few decisions. I’m notorious about wanting to do everything myself, especially if it looks like fun. So I’ll just need to bite the bullet and let someone else do it. Maybe I can get my daughter to do it for me. :)

    1. Ken–That’s the worst…when it’s something that we probably *could* do. Then we feel as if we’re wasting money giving it to someone else (but a daughter would probably be perfect).

  7. Hi Elizabeth – I need to come back and read your recent posts .. as they’ve passed me during the A-Z .. and I’ll be needing them in the coming weeks/months …

    I haven’t read this – but will be back to inwardly digest .. however when I click through from your comment on my post – it goes back to the old site … another mini glitch to adjust … doesn’t worry me – but I suspect it might you!! With your professional approach …

    Cheers for now and thanks for being so supportive during the Challenge – interesting to see you visited here about 20 years ago .. I was here then, but not blogging!! Byeeeee Hilary

    1. Hilary–Oh no! Yes, Margot mentioned something like that…see, there are all these loose ends. Good point…now to unlink myself from the old blog and relink to this one.

      Yes…I went with my college group to Eastbourne around 91ish. Beautiful place. And it was a sunny day! I remember having a picnic lunch there.

  8. Reviewing instead of writing, the challenges I face are a bit different. However, your tips are still helpful in that as a reviewer I need to be on those next big social media sites too and keep all my information update.

  10. This is what I refer to as “kerfuffle” and like housework, it’s never done. All you can do is keep notes and lists and set priorities and try to get to it when you can.

  11. There’s always so much to do! And we can’t be good at everything. I’m definitely fine paying for some things that take too much time and energy from me :)

  13. Thanks for the tips. I will look into the ecommerce and Amazon Affiliate program. Can you provide any more information or a link to the Amazon author page for foreign rights? I’d like to do this once I release my first book.

    Thanks

    1. Silas–You’re wanting to set up your Author Central account for the various countries, right? Although Amazon provides an online bookstore in *many* countries, only a handful have a separate Author Central page (others, so I understand, are in the works). These are the ones that are currently set-up (and for the foreign sites, I’d recommend using Google Translate (https://translate.google.com/ ) or a similar site to translate a short bio:

      UK: https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/landing

      Germany: https://authorcentral.amazon.de/gp/landing

      France: https://authorcentral.amazon.fr/gp/landing

      Japan: https://authorcentral.amazon.co.jp/gp/landing

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