Having been doing social media now for three or four years, this is the first time that I have an real understanding of what social media can be. Since my work was in the early stages of composition, I have been following Ms. Catherine Ryan Howard through her blog and some of her other writings. Now I have an opportunity to help Ms. Howard spread the news about the new third edition of one of the most valuable books that I have used during the opening stages of what I hope to be a long and fruitful career. So now, without further ado (drumroll please)…
As part of this SPLASH process, which I assume is meant to splash news about her new book all over the Internet, participants got the opportunity to ask Ms. Howard a question. This facet of the program has the pleasant result of disseminating useful information along with notification of her latest efforts. I hope my readers find my question and her response helpful in their endeavours*, to wit…
Q. What are your thoughts and recommendations on managing time as a new author dealing with revising, editing and formatting your self-published book while trying to spend some creative time composing your current or next work?
A: To be honest my two primary tasks would be different to what you’ve outlined above. I don’t think you are constantly revising, editing and formatting your published book. That should all be done once, within say a 3 month period, and then the book gets published and that’s the end of that. I wouldn’t be writing a new one while that’s going on because it demands time and your full concentration.
I would say what you’re trying to balance is promoting your published books and writing a new one and the only way to do that is to divide up your time. When I was doing this full-time, I did new work in the morning and social media stuff in the afternoon. Now that I’m back studying, I have two days for my self-publishing/writing stuff, and I do new writing on one of them and everything else on the other one. There’s basically no getting away from the fact that you have to do both, because you can abandon neither. I like to keep them separate – different times, different days, different computers even! – because there’s no point trying to write 1000 new words and keep an eye on Twitter at the same time. Divide and conquer, Jerry – that’s my advice!
So there you have it, very useful information, A extremely well-done book on this whole process of self-publishing – or self printing – which is fast becoming the art of writing in the 21st-century. I hope my readers might find it interesting and useful. Best wishes to you in all your endeavors**. Meanwhile, back to work on The Petticoat Rebellion.
* Since she’s Irish, I figured I’d splurge and use the British spelling. Of course, this brings up the whole British/Irish situation, so maybe we better forget it.
** Ah, good ole America! We can misspell anythang.
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