7:00 AM

Don't over extend yourself!

Facebook.
Twitter.
Goodreads.
Google +.
LinkedIn.
MySpace.  (welllll maybe scratch this last one...)

There are tons social networking sites out there for you to get involved in and use to help promote your work. The problem with having so many is that you can over extend yourself and spend all your time promoting and making connections and none of it writing!  The other problem is that when these sites keep popping up, it takes a good amount of time to sit down and learn how the site works and how best to utilize it for your own purposes. Yet another thing to take away from important prime writing and/or editing time.

 My suggestion is to pick one network to focus on at a time. Make your mark, build your friend-base and figure out how to promote yourself without it taking all your time and effort. Once you have that one down pat, you can move on and try to add another, but remember, better to just stick with a few rather than spending all your time navigating the social webs.

Another thing to be careful of is spreading yourself too thin offering to help with others. I'm all for lending a hand either with beta reading, editing or reviewing, but be honest with yourself when offering to do these things. Make sure you have enough time to help them and still be able to work on your own projects. If you make too many commitments you may find yourself under a lot of extra stress trying to get them all done on time and your own writing is pushed to the back burner. That's no good!

Do yourself a favor and utilize things like the Google Calender to show what you're working on and when things are due. That way you can refer to it next time someone asks for help and make sure you don't have three or four other projects due at that time.

I understand as an author, especially a self published one, you have to wear many hats which is time consuming and important to your sales, but remember, if there's no writing being done, there are no books to sell. Prioritize, people and don't take on more than you can handle, your stomach lacking in ulcers, full nights of sleep not filled with stress filled tossing and turning and a head lacking in aches will thank you later.

5 comments:

Darin Calhoun said...

I use twitter primarily, with Facebook & Goodreads second, and my blog third. Google+ I just don't have time for since everyone I know is mainly on Facebook and no one I know still uses MySpace. Everything else is extra including YouTube, Tumbler, and Foursquare. I'm sure when I start promoting my time will be fairly evenly split between marketing and writing but a lot of that will be Blogging not spamming the social networks.

MBee said...

Sounds like a good plan. You just have to know where the happy medium is :)

Patricia JL said...

I also find that sometimes it's just pointless to do them all. You have the same ppl friended on each one so you see the same update a million times. If I follow someone on twitter, I don't always friend them on FB because I know all I will see is the same update.

MBee said...

That's true too Patty. I often feel like I'm bombarding people with the same thing over and over :P

Jackie Buxton said...

That's so true. I feel constantly guilty at not giving much to any of the sites I'm involved in - ie, I'd love to read and comment on every blog posted at the four writers groups alone I'm involved in at FB and that's before Twitter and my own blog. I was so overwhelmed by the FB updates when I got back from holiday that I decided I really must streamline - haven't managed it yet though! Great post!