by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
No matter if you’re traditionally published or self-published, you’ll be dealing with lots of writing-related business. Having done both, though, I know you’ll have a bit more as a self-published author, especially if you’re going wide and publishing in lots of formats.
Sometimes, family and friends are a little sketchy on what that entails. Sometimes, I get so wound up in it myself that I can’t even relate all the things I might do in a day. Some of my writing-related business relates to book production (communicating with my editor or cover designer, emailing or texting IngramSpark or Draft2Digital with any hiccups I experience, etc.). Sometimes it relates to publishing wide (getting a book formatted and covered for translation, auditioning narrators for audio, approving audio, dealing with any issues). Sometimes it’s work to promote my books (running ads on Amazon or Facebook, updating my website, writing a newsletter, responding to readers, scheduling social media).
Whatever it is I’m wrangling in a day, I try to balance out the creative work and the business work. Here are a few tips for doing that:
Get your writing done first. For me, this is a non-negotiable. If I don’t knock out my writing first, I’ve learned that my day can get totally hijacked along the way. And business-related stuff can be such a rabbit hole that it can be one of the things that hijacks our writing.
Don’t try to tackle too much business at once. When you’re facing a lot of business-related work, it’s tempting to jump in and just keep going until you’ve finished. But sometimes business tasks can be so complex and overwhelming that it’s better to break it down into manageable bits to keep burnout at bay.
Use a timer and set a time limit. You may have the opposite problem from tackling too much business at once; you might not want to tackle it at all. If that’s the case, set your timer for a quick session to get started. Say you’re going to get started with Amazon ads, for instance. That’s going to involve some research before you run advertising on the platform. Divide the task into a few pieces: look up free Amazon ads courses online, read/watch/listen to the course for 15 minutes at a time, create ad copy, run the ad. Setting a timer helps make the different tasks less onerous and ensures you’re not going to get too sucked up into the process.
Keep notes. Some of this stuff can be complex. Whenever I’m learning something new, I always think it was such a bother that I’ll be sure to remember how it all worked next time. This never seems to happen! Now I take notes in Evernote or OneNote to remind me of all the steps I need to take the next time I do the task.
How do you keep up with your writing and business-related tasks? What have I missed?
Keeping Up With Writing And Business-Related Tasks: Share on X
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Yes, the writing is important, but don't let it throw off everything else. You are good at balancing it all. I know some authors who only come up for ai on social media when they have a book to promote, and that's not cool.
Such a good point. Either keep up with one or two social media formats or stay off them altogether if you’re going to just self-promote.
You are so right, Elizabeth, about writing first. Sometimes the business aspects of writing are so time-consuming that you can let your writing time get away from you. I've found, too, that having different folders for business (as opposed to my manuscripts, edits, and so on) helps keep those parts of writing separate from each other, so that I can concentrate on one at a time. Otherwise it can be hard to focus on what I need to do at any given time.
Good point about keeping business-related items separate from creative ones! That’s a great way to keep focus.
So much business-wise, I have tons of notes and checklists to keep up with all of it.
That’s probably the most organized way to make sure it all gets covered!
These are great tips, especially the ones to write first and set a timer.
Thanks, Natalie!
I've been keeping track of steps for more complex tasks in spreadsheets. I don't trust my memory to know if I uploaded the MS to all the retailers anymore.
I recently had to update covers (my cover designer tightened up the Bloo Moose series to be more cohesive) – that was a TON of work and the spreadsheets kept me sane :)
Like you, writing comes first and takes up the largest portion of my writing time
It’s *so* easy to lose track of where you left off! Smart to use a spreadsheet.
It is very overwhelming. There is so much to do and think about that it will sap the creative juice right out of my brain. These are good Ideas that I’ll have to work on.
Hope they help, Elizabeth!
Hi Elizabeth – keeping up with the day to day writing things that need to be done – so one isn't left with masses to do at once – this is my little (?) problem … and keep notes for easy future reference, when and if needed. Cheers Hilary
Keeping notes can really help!