Whats More Important: Writing or Book Marketing?

Have you ever wondered if you are spending your time wisely? Should you be spending less time writing and more time promoting or vise-versa? Time management is an issue that haunts every writer. Here are some thoughts on how to manage your time writing and marketing better.

Do you spin your wheels wondering where your focus should be?

Do you write feeling guilty that you’re not doing more to promote your book?

Do you spend time sending tweets and following up to see who responded and feel guilty that you’re not writing?

You are not alone!

Time Management: Writing vs. Marketing

The consensus is: writing is more important. However, what good does it do to write your book if no one knows about it? Without promotion you have no readers! So then the question is not what, but when should I be writing and when should I promote? Well relax a little, it is different for each author.
Writing

How disciplined are you? Can you hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your home office door during the day and keep focused? Do you need to wait to write until the wee hours of the morning when no one else is around to distract you? Individuals have different writing schedules (i.e. some people are night owls while others are early birds.) People have other responsibilities that take up their time, but as in any profession, you’re more successful if you have set hours to do your work.
Promoting

Do you have friends or co-workers who will help advertise by word of mouth? Do you have a contact in your local bookstore? Have you seen blogs or websites where you want to highlight your title? Are you part of a social network such as Facebook or Twitter?
The Combined Approach

A more subtle way to promote is to start your own blog and interact with your readers. You can discuss various topics and also mention your latest book, then post a link to where they can buy it. However don’t spend your whole blog writing time broadcasting your book, be sure your blog offers practical advice in your area of expertise. Also let the readers get to know you, find out common areas of interest and develop relationships.

Many readers are very curious about who the person is that wrote this particular story. What gave you the idea? Is it biographical? What influenced your imagination? You can use your blog to satisfy their curiosity.

Jane Friedman of Writerunboxed.com puts it this way:

“The horrible catch is—at least for beginning writers without fame and fortune, who are starting their careers in a transitioning industry—focusing on your writing work to the exclusion of all else can hamper you later down the road. If you shut yourself away and don’t learn to navigate the on-line world (the personalities, the flow of conversations, the tools), you’re terribly disadvantaged when it comes time to get a publisher, market your work, and find readers.”

She goes on to offer some excellent advice to help you identify when to concentrate on writing and when to work on your marketing. She also mentions J.A. Konrath, who gives some specific tips on how to promote your book.

Konrath is a veritable powerhouse of writing and merchandising his work. Guess what? It took him 12 years after graduating from college and gathering close to five hundred rejection slips for the first nine unpublished novels to be picked up by a publisher in 2003.

I say powerhouse because he went on to publish a book each year from 2004 to 2007, then two books in 2008, one in 2009 and in 2010 he published four books! Then another this year and that’s not counting all the tie-in stories and short stories he’s written in between. He offers very practical advice about marketing on his website, try it as a resource.

On the flip side of this argument is Chris Orcutt, author of A Real Piece of Work, who says:

“In her book The Writing Life, Annie Dillard tells the story of a student writer who asks his writing mentor if he could be a writer, too. The mentor says, ‘I don’t know. Do you like sentences?’ Ultimately all of this writing stuff comes down to sentences. I happen to love them. I do this because I can’t not do it. I am compelled to write every day, and have been for over 20 years.

Every writer needs to ask herself why she is doing this. If it’s to sell a ton of books, that’s great, and greater still if she is being honest with herself. If it’s to become the best writer she possibly can, that’s great, too, so long as she understands that she won’t necessarily become a bestselling author. I think it is nearly impossible to achieve an equal balance between writing and promotion, so each writer needs to decide where she wants to focus.”

“Balance” is not 50% Writing & 50% Promotion

I understand where Chris is coming from, but balance is a matter of perspective. You can write and you can promote, and the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

An example of an effective way to use your blog is to post a chapter from the manuscript you are currently working on. Offering content to your readers for free generates interest and you are essentially “advertising” while you write. Ultimately every writer is a marketer whether they pay for promotion or not. Don’t spend all your time tweeting, get busy writing!