Book Lover, Book Reader, Book Writer
Vancouver, BC Canada
Joined February 2010
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Marketing works best when it is ordinary and consistent—not when it is an exhausting emergency three days before a launch.
Seat-of-the-pants plotting can produce a lovely novel. Seat-of-the-pants marketing usually produces panic. Put dates and tasks on a calendar.
The worst time to think about marketing your book is the day after you publish it. Start building your road map while you are still writing.
A marketing plan does not need to be a fancy 40-page document. It can begin with three actions you repeat every week.
If you are waiting for a glorious three-hour block of time to write, you may be waiting a very long time. Try three minutes.
Five 100-word sprints equal 500 words. Ten equal 1,000. Tiny writing sessions add up much faster than excuses.
A 100-word sprint is small enough to begin on a bad day—and large enough to become a paragraph, a scene, or the start of a chapter.
You do not need a perfect uninterrupted morning to be a writer. One hundred words can be a real writing session.
If you have been pushing hard for weeks, schedule a little nothing. A whole afternoon with no productivity agenda can be remarkably medicinal.
Rest is not something you must earn by becoming completely depleted. Writers and entrepreneurs need recovery time before the wheels come off.
Giving yourself permission to pause may be the very thing that gets you moving again. The more we fight a low-energy day, the more energy we waste.
Burnout does not always arrive with flashing lights. Sometimes it whispers, “I don’t care. I don’t want to. Leave me alone.” Pay attention.
For fiction authors, a second and third book is often one of the best platform-building tools. Series readers love knowing there is more waiting for them.
Authority does not mean puffing yourself up. It means showing readers that you care about your subject, genre, and craft—and that you keep showing up.
An email list may feel old-fashioned, but it lets you speak directly to people who asked to hear from you. That is marketing gold for authors.
Your website is your home base. Social media is rented land. Use both—but make sure readers have one simple place to find your books, bio, and email signup.
Facing a blank page? Start with awful. It may surprise you by turning into something quite good: melanierockett.com/go-ahead-…
Drafting and judging are two different jobs. Do not hire your inner editor to supervise the first day of construction.