BadRedhead Media

Making Time For Book Promotion

As authors today, we’re compelled to juggle more tasks and responsibilities than ever before. Given the colossal effort you’ve invested in writing and publishing your book, you know you’d be crazy not to dedicate some energy to promoting it. But with all that’s going on in your life, how do you make the time for this?

Here are four different approaches to carving out some precious minutes or hours for boosting your book. Experiment with these, and you’ll find they’re a big help in making sure you undertake regular promotional activities, without becoming completely overwhelmed by all you have to do.

1. Time Blocking

Time blocking involves analyzing your schedule, typically on a weekly basis, and designating specific chunks of time for book promotion. This is a great approach if you like a lot of structure in your days and have a fair amount of control over how you spend your time. On the other hand, if you feel constrained by making firm plans in advance, or if your days are highly unpredictable, this method may not be for you.

To get started, review a typical week and figure out how much time you can spend on your author business as a whole. This includes writing, admin, and promotion. Then decide what proportion you would like to devote to promotional activities. This will vary according to your preferences, how far along you are in your career, the size of your backlist, and so on.

Now, get out your calendar and make appointments for yourself. Set reminders, create do-not-disturb signs, and use any other tricks you like so that your promotion time is protected.

2. Theme Your Days

If time blocking feels too rigid, another approach that works well is to theme your days. You might have certain days each week where you concentrate on writing new content, a day for business admin, and one or more days where you turn your attention to promotional tasks.

This approach is particularly useful as it gives your brain a break from worrying about promotion all the time. If niggling marketing thoughts and to-dos pop into your head, simply make a note and reassure yourself you’ll get to them on your next book promotion day. Having one central place (either digital or on paper) to serve as your promotional brain dump is a great tactic here.

3. “Binge” Promote!

Have you heard the time-worn advice to write every day? Did you know that more and more writers are, in fact, setting aside time to binge write on a far less frequent basis?

You can tackle your promotional efforts in the same way, by designating, say, one weekend per month for your book promotion activities. This is regular enough that you can stay in contact with readers, and it provides some good quality time to really dig deep into your marketing project list. For the rest of the month, your creative muse can get on with that task, safe in the knowledge that your promotion slot is coming.

An optional extra for this approach would be to form the habit of taking yourself off to a different physical location, like a library or coffee shop. In time, you’ll associate being there with wearing your promotional hat. You may find this brings extra focus, allowing you to power through your promotional tasks with added efficiency.

4. Divide Your Year

I’m not a huge fan of this approach, as I believe you should ideally aim for regularity in when you show up for readers. However, if you simply can’t juggle writing and promoting on an ongoing basis, you might decide to nominate short seasons where you do nothing but promote.

You might, for example, designate promotional months either side of each book release. During these months, you throw yourself 100% into being visible and building readership. Outside these months, you do only the bare minimum.

This approach feels a little dated, and it relies heavily on readers getting excited for your book around the time of its release. There’s definitely a risk your sales rankings will slip without ongoing attention. So, use this approach with caution and only when you’ve found the other methods really haven’t worked for you.

Whichever Approach You Choose, Here Are Some Further Tips for Using Your Time Well

• Don’t expect to hit upon your ideal promotion schedule first time. You’ll almost certainly need to iterate and adjust your approach until you find a rhythm that works for you.
• Save your brain the effort of remembering everything and create checklists for any promotional task you are likely to repeat.
• Realize you can’t do everything for book promotion! Try keeping a list of ideas and pulling from it as you have time available. Make a note of all the great tactics you’re learning during #NaNoProMo, but don’t try to implement them all at once.
• Promotional activities you dislike will be a drag on your time. If you’re lacking either skills or enthusiasm, the worry and hassle will chew up a disproportionate number of hours. Always look for the intersection of where your readers can be found, and what types of promotion you enjoy doing.

Many authors admit to feeling overwhelmed by book promotion tasks. I hope you find one or more of these approaches frees you up to write more joyfully and with better focus, as well as safer in the knowledge that you have set aside time for book promotion!

rocket

THE GIVEAWAY

Giveaway bundle (worth $95)

• 30-minute Skype consultation on making time to promote your work
• Done-for-you content calendar: Year of Productive Promotions
• Ebook copy, Indie With Ease

Want to win this giveaway? Simply leave a comment WHY below!

All comments must be left prior to midnight on Monday, May 13th, 2019 in order to be eligible to win. Winners for the week announced on Tuesday, May 14th.

Good luck!

Pauline Wiles

• PaulineWiles.com​​​​​

• @PaulineWiles

• Purposeful Productivity

Pauline Wiles is the author of three light-hearted novels as well as Indie With Ease, which helps self-published authors conquer stress. She believes pragmatic self-care is the foundation of a long and happy writing career. Her own version of this includes plentiful tea, cake, and running.

Get more tips on purposeful productivity for writers and a free mini-course, Focus for Writers, at https://www.paulinewiles.com/writers

For a more detailed plan on developing your book marketing, purchase Rachel’s new book,

The BadRedhead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge now on Amazon!

Already a 5-Star Reader’s Favorite! 

 

Get this book NOW on Amazon

Have you signed up for my newsletter yet?​​​​​​​​​​

Get On That, Would Ya?