Free e-book: Writing Your Life Story

Dear Fellow Writer,
FREE E-BOOK DOWNLOAD

Today - and all this weekend - I'm giving away free copies of my latest Kindle book: "The Easy to Write an Autobiography That Sells."

If you've ever thought about recording your life for posterity this book will help you. Plus, I'm told it's a great book about writing in its own right. Go HERE for that. It's FREE!

BTW: the promotion starts on Friday - if it's not yet free in your part of the world, it will be soon!
RECORDING THE PAST

Just recently I've been collating all my old audio tapes from my music career and making them digital. It's a huge task - there's something like 500 tracks spread over fifteen years.

Weird thing is that each song brings back a flood of memories. How and where it was recorded, what I was thinking at the time, who I was with. It's actually exhausting emotionally!

But it's what made me think of the Autobiography Course - and how it's a good idea at some point for all of us to try and make sense of our lives - by writing everything down.

Speak soon,

Keep Writing!
Rob@easywaytowrite.com

THIS WEEK'S ARTICLE:

The Writer's Dilemma


Writing books keeps you busy. You need to be in the right head space to compose a long work - and have the focus to stay there for long periods.

I've rewritten and published around eight or ten books in the last three months. It's a lot of work - not least keeping in the flow of each particular book for as long as it takes to write it.

What I've found it that when I'm steeped in writing a book, I find it hard to change gear and do something else - like posting articles, blogging and engaging in social media.

Do you have the same problem?

I know that it's important for modern authors to stay in touch with their readers. After all, that's why we're doing it. We want to be read by readers. But it does seem as though writing a book requires a different mental process than the one necessary for social media involvement.

Some long term professionals say they deliberately split up the year. 70% book writing, then 30% self promotion - when they will spend time focusing on posting blogs, getting interviews and generally be available for talks etc.

But it's hard to regiment when these things will happen.

And putting up blog posts and making Twitter and Google+ announcements is actually more time consuming than you realize. Not because it's hard but because your head needs to be in that space - which, as I say, is not the same space you need to be in to write a long work!

I guess it's about balance - but it's not as easy a juggling act as we often believe. It could be just me of course. And it could be just a recent thing.

I have another ten books I want to write and publish in the next few months - and I won't be satisfied until that's done! So it could be I'm just putting a lot of pressure on myself to focus on the job in hand and that everything else seems like a distraction from my current purpose.

But it's hard to stay fresh in people's mind when you cut yourself off from the world to complete a creative project. So that, when you're ready to come back, you have to fight hard to regain everyone's attention!

Corporates advertisers - even actors these days - employ staff to keep them in the public eye while they get on with running the business - or making the movie or whatever.

I guess it's about establishing routines. And strategies that cover all the bases.

We have a responsibility to our creativity as well as to our readers.

I remember reading recently that no amount of a writer's self promotion online will generate success more than writing another book.

It's a dilemma for many modern writers. Do we plug and promote one book over and over - or should we just knuckle down and write another one?

After all, we owe it to our readers to constantly improve and release better and better books. To enhance our craft - and to offer the best books we can - and we do that by writing more.

But each stage of the writing and promotion cycle requires the motivation and the strategies to see them through. It can be a very tough juggling act.

My apologies if I'm sounding a little angst-ridden today.

I guess I'm just trying to work this stuff through in my own mind.

At the end of the day, we just have to do the best we can!

Do your best.
 
Till next week.
Keep Writing!
 



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