Monthly Archives: July 2012

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Marketing versus writing

I know that there are some authors out there who can market effectively and still find time to write – they are much better at managing their time than I am. For me marketing and writing require two different areas of the brain and I just cannot make the switch over the course of a single day (sometimes more than that) so I find I can either market (or try to market, since I’m not very good at it) or write, which has all too frequently been put off in attempts to get my books out there. I have read how others do it – setting up a schedule and closely adhering to it, hit all of the social media sites, set up author tours (what the heck are those?), etc – and I just haven’t found a way that works for me. I need to hire a marketing firm… I wonder if they would work for homemade caramel corn and sugar scrubs.

And then there is the issue of separating ego from, well, everything. I would like to think I can handle negative feedback but in truth it is very difficult and my evil, fragile ego wants to take the 50,000 words written for Stone Romance and burn them. Luckily, it is hard to burn words that are typed into a computer – unless I burn the  computer, and in that instance I think I would have to trash the hard drive to truly eradicate the words. Actually, select all and delete would work just fine….  Hmm (eyes computer and keyboard.)

Luckily, the positive feedback smacks my ego back into place. 🙂 They are sustenance for a wretched soul.

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The importance of backing up your files

The other night when I couldn’t sleep and was up until four in the morning one of the things that occupied my thoughts was the notion that I should back up my files on the computer – my book covers and the book files themselves. When I woke up I emailed each book title with its files and covers to two of my email addresses and that night a root virus hit. Gak!! Right now, the computer is off line because the scan claims the virus was eradicated but I am not sure and I don’t want to infect my other computers, which would be a disaster. My tech-savvy hubby isn’t going to be home for a few weeks so we’re flying solo on this one but he emailed us some ideas to make sure the problem is taken care of.

With the slight cooling in the weather I am able to turn the AC off and throw open the house – yay! A grateful as I am for AC (VERY) I so much more prefer open windows and natural light. We have insulated curtains and when the AC is on the curtains are drawn and our house becomes a cave. The lower temp also means we will be able to spend more time outside playing Frisbee, which is so much fun. The other day my daughter managed to cut herself a little on one of the discs, which isn’t as odd as it sounds considering the disc had a gaping hole in it. It still flew, perhaps a little wobbly, but that made it more UFO-ish. Needless to say, that disc, which had also been heavily duct-taped due to breaking in half – was finally retired. All of our other Frisbees are doing well. 🙂