It’s been a hectic spring for me so far. ELVEN BLOOD was released April 1st, and I’ve been working my substantial rear end off with book promotion. I’ve got a few ads running, and a giveaway at Goodreads. (Click HERE and enter to win one of five signed paperback copies of ELVEN BLOOD – don’t forget to put it on your bookshelf to read!) Then there’s the blog tour – 16 stops from April 29th to March 24th. Keep your eyes on my blog and on my Facebook page because there are some awesome prizes for commenters along the tour. Grand prize for the tour is a Kindle Fire with an ELVEN BLOOD cover skin.
So, yeah – author stuff, the million kid activities requiring Mom Taxi service, then my work decided to explode with a landslide of projects and demands. Everything hit at once, and with the beautiful weather I’m trying to get out and run, horseback ride, and expand out strawberry patch. Writing? Last week I worked ONE day on my next novel. One. Yes, I did pound out 3,500 words, but that’s still far below my usual weekly goals. What’s a writer, a corporate gal, a mom to do when there’s just not enough time in the day?
How do you structure your day? Does the writing come before the tweets and blog posts, or after? Do you occasionally toss the laptop aside and sacrifice daily writing goals to bake in the sun or play a quick game of catch with the kids?
Alice Huskisson
I’ll look forward to reading how you get on. Good luck with it all! 🙂
debradunbar
Sorry to hear that! I know a lot of people who download from promos don’t read the book right away, meaning reviews from it can be spread out over a year. I read somewhere that the average reader/review ratio is 1% – so if more than 1 in 100 readers is writing a review, you’re beating those numbers.
I’m doing a few Goodreads ads, a Goodreads giveaway, and a the blog tour for ELVEN BLOOD – I’ll blog about my results. And hopefully I will see results!
I hope the reviews spark some additional sales. I agree, I hate giving away my hard work, especially when pricing is already rock bottom on e-books.
Alice Huskisson
The Kindle promo wasn’t as great as I’d envisaged. 🙁 Just over 900 downloads. I had hoped sales would increase but unfortunately just 4 this week! I don’t think I’ll do another one. I begrudge giving my work away. It was an experiment really just to see if it makes a difference to sales. I’ve heard many authors are finding they are producing less positive results than this time last year. The only good thing to come out of it will be reviews of which 2 have arrived already – we can never have enough great reviews, eh?
debradunbar
Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Alice.
That’s an excellent idea to have certain days for certain things! I’ve been trying to squeeze a bit of everything in each day, it it’s not working. I’m not the kind that can sit down to my MS for half an hour, I really need a block of time. And yes – the Tweets and Facebook are more time consuming than I always think they’ll be.
Hope you had success on your Kindle promo. I know how exhausting campaigns can be.
Alice Huskisson
I hear you Debra! You seem to have more responsibilities but I find it VERY difficult to structure any time in to my day to add to my manuscript. I was saying to my partner yesterday I need to structure my weeks, Monday – Blog, Tuesday – manuscript, and so on, etc. and be disciplined about it. I can see myself making no headway otherwise. I start my days by getting Tweets and Facebook covered, but somehow it’s never quick – it can carry me up to and beyond lunch time by the time I’ve replied to messages and comments. I finished my first free Kindle promo days last weekend and this week I’ve taken a few steps back to recover – I found the preparation on the approach to it and keeping on top of it on the days themselves, exhausting! So, this week I’ve been taking a lot of quiet time to just sit and read and recharge my batteries. Bliss.