Writer’s Digest – Wednesday 12 May 2021

Confession time. I’m still a couple of thousand words away from finishing the rewrite to The Cafe On Beach Road. I’d aimed to complete it over the weekend just gone but, well, there was this day drinking thing I did on Saturday involving a bus tour through a couple of distilleries, a brewery and a round of mini-golf. Then Mother’s Day on Sunday meant breakfast down at Mooloolaba and the afternoon spent curled up on the couch with Adventure Spaniel and Tom Barnaby (ie a Midsomer Murders binge).

It was a great weekend, but not so productive.

I’m also running behind on some basic tasks that I shouldn’t be running behind on. I’m yet to do a few teeny tiny things to allow my cover designer to complete the print covers for Escape To Curlew Cottage and Wish You Were Here – both of which, I might add, I’ve already paid for and both of which the formatting is completed. I haven’t uploaded I Want You Back to Ingram Sparks for print on demand (yep, all ready to go), and I have some pre-work I need to complete on Amazon and Goodreads for Beach Road. In addition, I’ve been experimenting with Amazon ads and need to get serious with this.

None of this (with the exception of the ads) is too onerous. They are all little tasks which can be ticked off in a few hours.

While I say that I only have time to write and day job, and that marketing is just one job too many, the fact of the matter is, unless I want to still be saying that in another 10 years, I have to get real, pull my big girl pants up and put myself out there. Yes, I have a busy day job, but then so do many other people. Rather than use it as an excuse I have to somehow schedule in the other tasks if I want to take this business seriously – which I do.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had three completely unrelated people also tell me I need to be more present from a brand and marketing viewpoint and they’re right. Putting out a book is one thing (and that on its own is super scary) but telling the world about it? That’s something else entirely that, quite frankly, I need to get over.

Anyways, my goals for this week are to: