Social Site, Writing, and Day-to-day living... Finding the time for all

 

Being a writer means writing, even when you're not in the mood. Time is something you make. So how do you juggle keeping a normal life, writing a novel, and marketing novels you've already written? Carefully lol.

This is something I have learned over the years. The first book is always the easiest. Once it becomes published, you must learn how to continue writing while marketing the first book. Balancing life between the two and keeping a life is a little easier when it's only the one book with one being written. The more books you write and publish, the harder it becomes, especially when you're writing in multiple genres like I do. You have more than one audience which means extra work on top of what there is already. And that's fine because it is worth it. At least for me.

So what are the secrets? You guessed it. Planning, planning, and keeping a schedule. But of course, what works for one may not work for another. So it really depends on your preferences and routine, memory plays a role as well lol. As does discipline. Time doesn't find you, you find it...

Social sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest; all of these are great resources and awesome platforms to use to meet people and get your name out there. But it also takes time to do it. You can't expect to be published today and have your name on everyone's tongue tomorrow. It takes time to build a presence. But it's not impossible. Like I said, it just takes time. But how do you do it all without losing yourself in the process?

Here's what I do. Above are two pictures. That is my calendar planner. I look at that book daily, several times daily in fact. I schedule what posts I want to use and when. Then once a week, on a night I stay up all night, I will post ahead. For me, I do a week's worth of posts during that night but you can do more or less. Facebook and Twitter have built-in schedule postings for such an occasion. Through Groups you can post directly from Facebook. Write out the post you intend to share, then look at the bottom of the post for the calendar icon, click on that and a new box appears with the date and time. Choose what you want and click on the post button. It will be saved for the date it is scheduled for and publishes on that day and time that you specified. If you have a Page, you must go to a specific page within the FB Page and schedule your post or you can use a third-party site/app. I use the free version of Hootsuite for Instagram and the FB Page for those posts, and I schedule them at the same time. Same post. One of the problems with using the free version is the limitations. So if you are going to use a third-party system to publish your posts, decide which version works best for you and your wallet.

There are many sites to use but choose sites that are partnered with those sites (Facebook, Instagram, etc). Hootsuite, Later, and there are more. The website and apps for these places will tell you if they are partners with them so make sure you research your options before choosing one. Test them out as well.

There are writers who still manually publish their posts so that's still an option. Finding the time of day or night that works best for you will be different for you than it is for me so get to know what type of schedule you have and stick to it. It makes remembering things so much easier lol. And when an emergency creeps up, don't panic. Just work it in. Be flexible, consistent, and keep growing. Allow yourself time to maintain your posts (engaging with followers and the like). That part is super important. You want to spend at least 30 minutes a day doing that. Instagram even keeps track of that so you can keep an eye on how long you spend on the app. I just learned that feature and it is cool. You can set a reminder to notify you when you reach your timed goal for the day.

Once you figure out your schedule for social sites, get your schedule down for writing, editing, and marketing. Now you have the rest of the day for other things like your day-to-day living. And don't forget, you need to set aside time for research as well. You cannot forget to set aside time for yourself, to relax. Even if you have to pencil in your entire day, every day. Learning to balance them can keep you productive as well as healthy. Your mental and physical health is important so be sure to work on those as well. And have fun!

Do you have anything to add?