M. Heitkemper

M. Heitkemper

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Promoting or Writing. Choose one...

How do you split the time between promoting a current book and writing the next?  That is my current dilemma.  “Becoming Mortal gods” is off to a good start on sales, but it seems that the only way to keep the sales coming is to relentlessly keep promoting.  Of course I knew going into this that promoting a self-published book was going to be a huge job for one person.  I just didn’t anticipate how much it would stall me from finishing my next book.  I’ve tried making a schedule for myself, but that failed from the start.  I write when I’m inspired to, I guess.  And it’s hard to get inspired when a schedule tells me I have too.  And don’t even get me started on that annoying day job that I can’t seem to rid myself of.  Any one else have this problem?  What do you do to get past it?

2 comments:

  1. Glad to hear your book is off to a good start; I'll be uploading mine about July 1.

    If you go over to Dean Wesley Smith's blog (http://www.deanwesleysmith.com), his take is that writing the next book promotes your prior book. And so on. The more books you have available, the more people will be able to find something from you.

    My take on promotion? Only do that which you would do on a regular basis, and only if it's fun. (Why do it if it's not fun?) For instance, if you have a FB fan page but prefer to be on Twitter because you like getting into short conversations with people.

    There are also some indie ebooks you might consider picking up if you have the dough/time: John Locke's How I Sold a Million Ebooks in 5 Months. Just going through this now; I'm not sure I have the time or energy to do what he did, but it might be worth your time ($4.99)

    This is one I haven't bought as yet, but it looks interesting: Self-Publish Your Novel, by Robert Kroese. Has sold over 10,000 copies of his novel. ($2.99)

    One last one, before you throw me outta here ;-) is: How to Make, Market, and Sell Ebooks - All For Free, by Jason Mathews. It might be more for non-fiction, but I think he covers territory similar to John Locke. Might be worth a look.

    Continued success for you! :-)

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  2. Whoops, forgot to add that the price (today, anyway) for that last ebook is $3.82. :-)

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