Monday, October 25, 2010

Back-to-Business Monday: IT'S ABOUT THE BOOKS, RIGHT?

It's a fine line we 21st century writers walk between writing great work to go between the covers of our books AND writing, almost constantly, as part of our efforts to reach out to our readership through websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and so on. So many words, so little time.


Every week (and sometimes almost daily), I have conversations with authors struggling to find balance between producing their best work and promoting what's already published (not just on line but through bookstore appearances, author visits, conferences and other types of in-person promotion) so that they'll continue to have opportunities to write. I always have the greatest sympathy for this conundrum--I struggle with it myself. And I so wish I had a magic formula to help authors choose which types of promotion are worth the time and angst and which are not.

Right now, for me, I feel strongly pulled toward writing (over promotion). This always happens when I'm revising something that really excites me. You know, when you find yourself driving along the road or standing in the shower and all of a sudden you think, "Of course, and then the mc HAS GOT TO do/say/think..." and you've got to pull over quick or wrap yourself in a towel to write your idea out, dripping wet or running late to whatever's next in your real world.

To this end, I'll close today by pointing you to my lovely friend Molly's blog to read about her November event, the Golden Coffee Cup. Molly has a knack for spreading good writing karma and for those of you who are "all about the book" like me right now, you might want to head on over and join in the golden fun!

1 comment:

Elana Johnson said...

It is a constant thing: the need to write and the need to promote. For me, when I really need to write, I stop doing other things like twitter and facebook. Blogging is my main platform and I'll do that, but everything else slides.