Hi readers! I published this post around 8:00 a.m. this morning but something happened with WordPress and me. Apparently Google says I can’t be found. Which is VERY ironic given the title and nature of this post.:) Oy. If you’re getting this twice, I apologize. Actually, this is the better version….
Just another Magic Monday and today I’m excited because I’ve found two blog posts that dovetail nicely with my post last Monday, Laptop on Fire!
To give you the gist of last weeks post, I talked about not having the creative energy left over for social media because I was immersed in my work in progress. This also led me to a discussion of the delicate balance of having the time to write and having the time to be on social media building my platform. I desperately want to find my balance.
Enter the always brilliant Jane Friedman with a post on Writer Unboxed called Should You Focus On Your Writing Or Your Platform? Please note: the following lists are just a few paragraphs taken out of Jane’s post. Please read the entire post when you get time, she imparts tons more valuable wisdom and information.
Here’s how Jane broke it down:
“Balance is the key word here. Focusing on your writing probably means spending 10%-25% of your available writing time on platform activities. I never recommend abandoning platform activities entirely, because you want to be open to new possibilities. Being active online—while still focused on your writing—could mean finding a new mentor or the perfect critique partner, connecting with an important influencer, or pursuing a new writing retreat or fellowship opportunity.”
Hmmm…. ten to twenty-five percent. Here’s how I broke it down:
Most days I work seven to eight hours a day on my writing and try to take weekends off. Some of that time is spent on research, reading, craft, keeping up with the market. If you crunch the numbers using an eight hour day, 7 days a week, ten percent would mean 48 minutes for building your platform. Wait, 48 minutes?????? To write a blog post, tweet, reciprocate and socialize? Twenty percent would be 96 minutes or an hour and a half. I know I spend two to three hours every day and much, much more on weekends. Crunch your own numbers.
I’ve always looked at social media as tasks and goals and sometimes it takes longer to get those tasks and goals done than others. I know I have a time limit, I use a schedule and that schedule says two hours, most times I go over. I’m not entirely sure what to do with this except tell myself and you to pay attention to your time. Picture me shaking my finger. “Time’s up Missy! or Mister!”
Back to Jane Friedman at Writer Unboxed….
Jane’s Lists
When to focus more on your writing
- If you are within the first five years of seriously attempting to write with the goal of publication
- For novelists: If you have not yet completed and revised one or two full-length manuscripts
- If you can tell that what you’re writing is falling short of where you want and need to be
- If you see a direct correlation between the amount of writing you put out and the amount of money that comes into your bank account (the JA Konrath model)
- If you are working on deadline
When to focus more on your platform
- If you start to realize you’re on the verge of publication
- If you have a firm book release date of any kind
- If you want to sell a nonfiction book concept (non-narrative)
- If you intend to profit from online/digital writing that you are creating, distributing, and selling on your own
- If you need to prove to a publisher or agent that your work has an audience
I think the lists are helpful. By happy co-oincidence I also found Science Fiction author Jen Reese’s, My Social Media Survival Guide. Her guide totally blew my socks off because she echoed everything I’ve been saying about balance, writing, guilt, and put it into an easy to read guide. Finally an author on the frontlines has laid it all out in a way that makes sense to me and an author who’s smart enough to not to tell us to do it her way BUT that we each must do it our OWN way. I also give her credit for being brutally honest.
Jen echos my thoughts about guilt, comments, etc. Talk about serenidipity! When you have time, please go and it, it’s definitely worth your time even if you’re happy with what you’re doing right now. Jane and Jen’s links are going on Kate’s Quickie page too so you can find them in the future.
We all hear and see the words “it’s about balance” and “do what’s right for you” but now I finally think I know what it means and I’m getting closer to finding a happy balance. I think I might be able to let the guilt go too.
Let me know what your think of this post and if you had any epiphanies of your own from reading it. Also, if you have links or great insights about blogging balance, please share.
By the way it took me 45 minutes to polish the post that didn’t go out and another fifteen minutes to figure how that my link was down. “Time’s up Missy!”
Onward with book stuff!
Have a happy, healthy day!
Kate~
Fantastic resources and great post Kate. I hear ya, the balance is definitely a tough one to master but as long as we stick with it, and live guilt-free, I think it all works out. Woot woot – thanks for the fab deets!
Thanks Natalie. Balance is key. By golly, I’m going to find it.
Kate, recently I took a very close look at what I spend my time on. I realized that, although I like and need to continue building my platform, I have to cut time devoted to it in half. No, this is not a typo – A HALF. My writing started to suffer and that was a wake up call. I am taking time off from blogging and that alone makes a huge difference.
I’m currently revising my platform plan for the near future. It obviously needs to support my novels and short stories, but I also want to continue a social aspect of it.
Great post, Kate. I’m off to read Jen’s blog now. Thank you for you invaluable tips and insights!
I was wondering where you were Angela and I hoped it was because you are writing. Yippeee! I’m so glad you found your way back to your writing. That’s been the frustrating thing for me. I enjoy social media, I’m glad I’m building my platform but there comes a time when you have to put on the brakes and evaluate your time spent. Good for you. Thanks so much for sharing. This helps me and I’m certain it will help someone else.
Hi Kate! I read Jane’s post Saturday and between hers and stephen King’s advice, I finally formulated a plan for myself that I posted yesterday on my blog. I spent more than a year learning the craft, writing crap, and building my platform. I’m now at the point where I have one short story near completion and others close behind it. I now go into my writer’s cave to write, first thing EVERY morning, until I have written 2000 words, however long that takes.
I will visit up to 30 blogs a week and comment, visit Triberr for 15 minutes each day and my blog automatically posts on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads. I spend 20 minutes every other day on Pinterest and Twitter. So basically 45 minutes a day on SM aside from writing blogs which takes me 4 hrs a week. This translates to just over an hour a day, 6 days a week for all SM.
I’m planning on getting an author website up by the end of May. At that point my blogging will drop to once a week, and I’ll have a newsletter that will go out regularly, maybe once a month. I’ll be focusing more on my target audience. I’ll also be spending more time writing and marketing my books.
Jane’s lists really clarified the whole platform thing for me. I’ve totally given up the guilt of not finding time for everything SM. I do what I can and hope that’s good enough, because I need to be more serious about the writing. Now I have to go read Jen Reese’s post. Thanks for posting this info…it will definitely help a lot of writers!
Thank you for sharing this Marcia. This is so helpful! I’ll come over to your blog this evening and check out your post. I like your plan and have been reformulating one of my own. Kate’s Quickies are here to stay. I found it very interesting that my shortest post was also one of my highest read posts ever. Thank you, thank you!
I’m so glad Marcia shared what she came up with ~ her post is amazing. I haven’t yet read Jen’s or Jane’s posts and will do as soon as I’m done commenting here. I took a few weeks off to finish up my MS and severely cut back my SM and blogging. What I found was that I truly missed reading the various blogs I follow. I now think of them as a ‘reward’. If I get my word count or writing time in, then I can play around for a little bit. Today I’m taking the day totally off from my own writing to clean the house and just catch up on SM. It’s been great so far, but I’m starting to get antsy that I should be writing. Even when I gave myself permission to play! I’m still trying to find my balance and hopefully will one of these days.
Stick with Marcia, Angela O, me and the rest of the strugglers and you’ll be just fine Tameri. When you truly love writing, you want to do it as much as you can, I think that’s why you feel antsy. You do need to give your creative brain time to rest though so I hope you did something really fun and got lazy afterward.
I get lots of inspiration from reading the blogs of others whether they be writers, photographers or craftspeople and I believe inspiration can translate into words on the page. Social media isn’t the enemy. It all boils down to what we want ( a publishable book ) and what we have to do to get there. In my case it’s spend less time on social media but many of us have tamed that horse already and perhaps it’s something else they need to give up.
Happy play day Tameri. You deserve it.
I’m finding it so fascinating that we are all coming to this stage in our awareness of the balance (or lack of it) in our writing life. Thanks for all of the important information here, Kate. It’s all so helpful to figuring out what works for each of us.
I think it’s fascinating that we are all coming to this stage in our awareness too. Thanks, I hope it helps. I’m determined to have my cake and eat it too.
Pingback: Getting back on track … « Patricia Sands' Blog
Pingback: Getting back on track …