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.
A.C. Warneke's blog 
Marketing is tough. I suggest creating a list of things you need to do–promote on social media, set up online advertisements, plan book signings, write press releases–and then follow the list as closely as possible, allotting several hours each day to just marketing.
I’ve done a lot of this but then my writing suffers – it’s trying to find the balance between writing and marketing that I am struggling with. 🙂 I’m too often an all-or-nothing type of girl (write or market, market or write, not to mention everything else that needs to get done) and it’s difficult to learn new tricks.
Maybe you can set several days aside in each week for just marketing, say, Tuesdays for example.
That is a great idea. Thank you! 🙂
I totally get you: I call myself “linear.” I can do one thing, finish it, do the next thing.
Karen –
That’s it exactly! I tend to get a little obsessive once I start something. 🙂
Don’t ever let words telling you a book is horrible get to you. Words are words, and for every person that doesn’t like one of your books there’s another that comes across them and loves them. =] So always remember there are a lot more people who like your books than there are that don’t. =)
Thanks – and that’s just a piece of dust in my eye; I’m not crying. Really. 🙂