How Can Authors Market More Efficiently?

 

Authors are their own worst enemy when it comes to time management. They want to just write, write, write when they often need to split their time to also market, market, market.

Here are some approaches to email to avoid seeing time go by without progress:

1.      Recognize what your time-wasting activities are. You know what they are. Eliminate, decrease, or subdue them.

2.      Use an autoresponder or cut-and-paste responses to common questions and situations.

3.      Only check email a few times a day and respond to the most pressing issues first. Rather than issue lengthy emails, settle, or clarify something with a two-minute phone call.

4.      Use a short email to respond to voicemail. Rather than getting caught up in lengthy calls with time-wasting people.

5.      Set daily priorities – a to-do list – and stay focused on those activities.

6.      Look to group similar tasks together and batch them so you can bang out a bunch in one sitting.

7.      Do not let people interrupt you. That means no answering the phone or checking emails while lasering in on a specific task.

8.      Limit access of others to your time and demand people prepare for a meeting with yo.

9.      Be organized, set priorities and evaluate your progress.

10.  Ask others or help, even pay for it.

11.  Always ask yourself: Am I being productive or merely active?

12.  Be bold and aggressive. Best-selling author Timothy Ferriss says: “Beg for forgiveness; don’t ask for permission.”

13.  Be effective – do things that get you closer to achieving your goals. Along the way, you will also need to be efficient – performing tasks in a timely and economical manner.

14.  Follow Pareto’s Law: 80% of your results will come form 20% of your efforts. Eliminate the rest.

15.  Find ways to shave time off of every task, and look, where possible, to cancel or outsource such task.

16.  Set rules, boundaries, and limits for yourself. By determining the parameters under which you will operate will save you from doing things – or dealing with people that you know waste your time.

17.  Don’t be Hamlet on every decision – sometimes you need to go with your gut or a recommendation and jump into action. Deliberation over what to do too often delays and cripples us. Most decisions are simply not so big or important.

18.  Working longer is not always the cure. Work smarter and harder.

19.  Avoid meetings unless they are crucial to something important. Never let people ramble on.

20.  Set time limits on all calls and meetings – and use 15-minte intervals. Don’t just default to 30- and 60-minute meetings.

21.  Avoid micro-managing others or obsessing over details on less-important matters. Free your mind and body up for just a few, key tasks.

Learn, Grow, Succeed!!

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Brian Feinblum, the founder of BookMarketingBuzzBlog, can be reached at  brianfeinblum@gmail.com.  You can – and should -- follow him on Twitter @theprexpert. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2021. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent.  This was named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. Also named by WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America. For more information, please consult: linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum.