March 26, 2010
In a perfect world, I would have enough time to tackle all aspects of my writing career daily. In addition to the actual writing itself, I would take care of marketing, financials, research, reading, etc. Since this is not a perfect world, I constantly struggle to cover all these bases. Often, it takes what little time I have available just to do the writing, which I tend to give first priority…and the other aspects take a back seat. Problem is, when I do that, I lose ground in important ways. Missing out on marketing, in particular, takes a toll, as other writers’ projects make it into the hands of editors before mine do. If I’ve written a zombie thriller, and someone else has written a zombie thriller that beat mine to the editor, guess whose book will be more likely to sell.
But this past week, I’ve worked hard to get caught up on the marketing side. I sent 12 novel queries to editors, my best total so far this year…and I got one request for a full manuscript. Not bad, considering I forgot the big Book Fair in Bologna, Italy was happening this week, so not everyone would be in the office or checking e-mail like usual.
Hopefully, I can keep up the momentum next week, because I’m running out of time. Summer’s on the way, at which time editors, like many of us in the working world, will be taking vacations. So it’s important that I get out as many queries as possible between now and June. But it’s also critical that I don’t drop the ball creatively and stop writing. This weekend, I’m going to try to get the writing side back in action to match the momentum on the marketing side. See you soon.
