THE BUSINESS OF WRITING

These days we all know if we want to make a career out of our writing or, whisper it, even to make some money, we have to treat it like running a small business. We also have to put ourselves out there on social media - something I personally fail at dismally most of the time, much too far out of my comfort zone. We also know, especially if we’re traditionally published, a lot of things are out of our control and down to our publisher and those dratted things on Amazon etc known as algorithms.

Having run several small catering businesses in the past I know how hard managing a business can be. But running a writing business isn’t like running any other business. Even though I spent a lot of time working in the kitchen when catering, I had helpers and I’d meet the customers. I had social interaction within the course of my working day. Writers invariably work alone for hours at a time in front of a screen these days getting the words down without a lot of input from other people.  The real business of writing starts after the book is finished.

These days it’s all about networking and making useful contacts with fellow authors, bloggers and readers, doing guest posts, having an up-to-date website - the list goes on, for both independent and traditionally published authors. 

Reading the blog of friend and fellow RNA member, Alison Morton this week, I realised just how much effort and time has gone into her success as an independent author publishing her award winning bestselling Roma Nova thrillers. She makes my current paltry efforts on Twitter and Facebook look . . . well even paltrier to be honest.

Alison lists everything she still has to do or organise after the book is written - and it’s a huge amount of work: commissioning a cover design, editing and proofreading, formatting. Granted if you’re published traditionally the publisher takes responsibility for a lot of these but these days they do expect authors to do a lot more marketing than back in the day. I found Alison’s pre-launch routine as a part of her marketing campaign particularly interesting:

‘While you’re waiting for copy-edits or structural edits or beta readers and at least 4-6 weeks before publication date, you spend days at the email coalface contacting all the friends, fellow authors, bloggers and reviewers you know to ask for their help launching your treasure. You will have set up a spreadsheet, of course, to track it all to include name, email, website, what you agree on after a little negotiation (guest post, review, Q&A), date agreed, date drafted and date sent.’

Now I do try to do most of those things but I have to admit the phrase that scared me half to death was the one containing the word ‘spreadsheet’. I do of course keep records but it has never occurred to me to use a spreadsheet.  I’ve always thought of spreadsheets as being the preserve of accountants and the like. In fact I confess I didn’t know and honestly couldn’t see how it would work for keeping the kind of records writers need to keep. So I took myself off to Youtube and watched a couple of videos hoping to learn and be inspired. All I can say is that my brain froze. Can I just say I am in awe of anybody that can create, update and understand a spreadsheet. As for me I shall just have to keep to my tried and trusted method of pen and diary - and a simple back up document on the computer.

I’d love to know how everyone else keeps track of all their social media and marketing skills.

Here’s the link for Alison’s very informative blog - its well worth a read: https://alisonmortonauthor.com/blog/