Balance Writing Time and Promotion

by June Shaw

Before I sold a novel, I had no idea that an author needed to spend so much time promoting her work. Boy, but we do--unless, of course, your name happens to be one that remains atop the bestseller list.

DEADLY REUNION, third book in my series of humorous mysteries, comes out at the end of July. It seems like ages since I started that book and again since I completed all of the rewrites. Now I'm hard at work on another book--but it's time to throw myself full out into promoting the one that comes out this summer.

Jugglers should be good at this job. They know how to balance one thing against another one. We've studied from excellent authors to learn how to write well enough to sell and now need to learn more and more marketing skills. Hm, let's see--if I'd start college now to learn these things, I would probably schedule classes equally between marketing and creative writing. Oh, and then there's social media, public speaking and too many other skills to think about.

I'll stop now. I need to write. Or promote. Probably both.

How fortunate I am to have entered into this interesting challenge of becoming a modern novelist.