Blah Blah, Blogging

Blah, blah, blog…

I’ve come to the conclusion that Quality is more important than Quantity, and More is Not Better. I live by these words, use them in my work with clients, and they certainly apply to blogging.

Since I’m now wearing more hats than the Queen of England or Jackie O, I’ve spent the last few weeks feeling somewhat overwhelmed. Essentially, I’ve become a book publisher overnight, which means I am PR person, marketing director, sales and promotions manager and, oh yeah…author. The tasks involved in self-publishing are akin to starting a small country—not designed to be tackled by one person. Apparently, it takes a village to raise a child and a small corporate entity to launch a book.

I keep telling myself to take it in steps, take small bites so to speak--handle things one day at a time. If I can only get all my ducks in a row and put all the pieces together, I can stop mixing my metaphors and eventually get to where I’m going. But staying focused has been extremely challenging. Especially with the pressure to blog on a regular basis (3x per week is recommended by the marketing experts). How much do I really have to say? And who cares anyway? My blog posts aren’t changing the world, making it a better place, or serving the greater good in any way. In fact, they are simply taking up cyber-space and costing me precious writing time in my effort to have my name hit the airwaves a million times. I’m also asking a lot of my busy friends and followers to spend their valuable time keeping up on the minutia of my world. I respect them too much to burden them with this expectation. Yet, writing, reading and following blogs is the way, we are told, to gain recognition and sell books.

I don’t doubt that repetitious exposure to our name is key to gaining an audience, but I’m not convinced it’s the best use of my time. Life is becoming increasingly complicated. I feel as if I’m creating a monster that I will have to keep control of and tame somehow. I had to ask myself if all of this pressure and stress is worth the return, and if it’s the life I truly want. At my core, I am an individual who values a balanced and healthy lifestyle above all else when it comes to my work and daily life choices. It has taken me most of my life to achieve that goal and I am proud of how far I’ve come. I know what makes me happy and what I have to do to maintain my peace of mind. I’m not afraid of hard work, but on my present course, I am at risk of losing my balance. When the monster begins to control my life, I know I need to go back to basics. The saying Keep it Simple rings true for me.

In my attempt to simplify my life and manage the monster, I’ll be cutting my blogging down to Fridays on my website and Tuesdays on the writingsecretsof7scribes blog site—for now—no more blogspot.com. I’m still learning, still tweaking my job description and trying to establish what works for me and what doesn’t. Expect changes for awhile until I master my new career path and become efficient with my process. One of the benefits of indie-publishing is that I am the boss and nothing is written in stone. Flexibility was one of the pros on my pros and cons list of why I chose this route.

Blogging, for me, is about connecting to my readers—people who will read my books and love my characters enough to want to follow me to the next book. From a business standpoint, my goal for blogging is to focus on building my Brand and garnering attention for my books. To best serve both of these functions, my posts will be related to some aspect of my writing. Whether I blog about craft, about my characters, my journey, or something related to my books, I’ll try to do what a blog should do—entertain, inform, or instruct, while gaining attention of readers interested in what I’m doing. In my opinion, staying focused and consistent is really the way to gather an audience.

So if you’ve enjoyed Fitness Fridays, go to my website and check out my Health Corner. For writing secrets, follow my writingsecretsof7scribes posts on Tuesdays, and subscribe to my website to receive e-mails about updates to my site.

In your opinion, how much is too much?
Happy reading, and blessings to the blogosphere!