The importance of being professional

First impressions are important. There's that saying that people judge you within the first few seconds of meeting you. I suppose you could say that goes for online presence as well. And especially with readers and your books.

Being a self-published author is about being a professional as much as being a writer. You have to do a lot of the leg work yourself. And when you do, you have to do it professionally. You have to be courteous. You have to keep track of everything that you've got to do and keep on top of dates, jobs, and emails. And you have to be humble and accepting of "no" when it comes.

You are your selling point. Your face and your reputation will be known to the readers and to people in the business. If it gets around that you're unprofessional, people aren't going to want to work with you. And that can be the kiss of death for a writer's career, especially if you're a self-publishing or an indie author trying to get their foot in the door of a big publishing house.

So here are some tips on how to be professional in your online presence:

1. Use people's names. If you know last names, use proper titles. 
2. Don't send mass emails. Tailor emails to individuals.
3. Double check your emails. You don't want to have to explain why you sent an email to someone with the wrong name on it.
4. Answer promptly and courteously, even if the answer is "no."
5. Be on time with things. If you get a "yes," make sure you get things to people by the deadline they give you or, preferably, earlier.
6. Follow up with people. 
7. Say thank you. This is the best thing you can do to show you're a professional.

Why you should ALWAYS double check your emails

When you're a self-publishing author doing everything on your own, sometimes you get a little overwhelmed. Sometimes things slip through the cracks. But there's one thing that should never, ever slip through: emails.

You should double check every email before you send it. Every. Single. One. ALWAYS.

File this one under lessons learned, my friends. When you send two to three dozen emails every day to book blogs requesting reviews and looking for stops for a blog tour, sometimes you overlook things. Which isn't always the best thing. Especially when you send an email to one blogger addressed to another. This leads to the first of the lessons that I learned: don't copy/paste entire emails. The body is great. But not the entire thing. You definitely want to write the salutation individually for every single email. And secondly, you want to make sure that the email is addressed to the right person. Right name, right spelling, everything.

Spell check those things. Make sure you have all the information the blogger asks for. Because if you don't give them what they asked for, it looks like you didn't read their policy. And that's a quick way of getting into their trash file. Or a straight forward no. And while dealing with "no" is a good learning experience, it should be because the blogger or the agent isn't the best fit for your story, not because you don't know how to read their policies and submit correctly.

Read those emails. Double check them. Triple check them. Don't send them until you're sure they're going to the right person.

Because you look like an unprofessional idiot if you send it to someone with the wrong name on it.

Trust me.

Prepping for a blog tour... and why it sucks

One thing about being a self-publishing author doing everything on your own is that sometimes things start to get overwhelming. Especially when you're planning promotion and things like that. You have to worry about budgets, time-management, and a dozen other things that usually a publicist would deal with. Right now, for example, I'm prepping for my blog tour in March. And that means doing a lot of things that take a lot of time.

And that sucks.

I usually spend an hour or so a day writing emails to book bloggers requesting reviews or putting out feelers for blogs who would like to host a stop on the blog tour. Maybe I'm being a bit to ambitious for my first tour since I'd like to do 30 stops in 30 days, but I'd like to really get my name out there. It might be time to think more realistically and shave down those stops to 10 or 15.

On top of figuring out how many stops I want to make and finding the right blogs to host those stops, I have to make sure I have the materials to take to those blogs. You know, eBooks in the right format, bookmarks and other swag materials to give away. And I have to plan guest posts to send in and answers to author interview questions. It's hard enough planning posts for my own blog a month in advance, now I have to figure out post topics for a different blog?

And then there's the big swag giveaway at the end of the tour. The last stop is my blog (smooth, huh, to drive traffic to my website) and it's a huge prize pack. And that means I have to have physical copies of the book as well as other swag products to fill up a tote to give away. That also means shipping costs and stuff like that. Setting a budget for this thing is crazy, because I don't have any idea what it's going to cost. I don't know what a realistic budget for something like this would be!

So that's why prepping for a blog tour sucks. Because not only am I writing on a brand new project and getting ready to go back to do revisions on the second Elemental Royals novel (ugh, which reminds me there's a blog tour for that one in June), now I have to worry about all the blog tour stuff too.

Welcome to the world of the self-publishing author.

Playing publicist

Multitasking is something that we have to do. Every single day, we have to do two or three things at a time just because there are so many things that need to be done and only a limited amount of time to do them in. I'm used to multitasking. Working two jobs at a time, teaching a class and running a church program all at once, I'm used to it. It's been useful when I started working as my own publicist.

Self-publishing is good to just get your book in print, but that doesn't mean that you'll sell a lot of books. There's some leg work involved. Lots of multitasking, long days, and late nights. Especially when you have another job or two to pay the bills. Multitasking and time management are two of the most important things--other than writing skill--that a self-published author can have. Because no one else is going to do the work for you, not unless you're willing to fork out a lot of money for a professional or semi-professional tour group or publicist to plan your blog tours and get your name out there.

Multitasking as a self-published author not only means writing and editing your own novel, but it means playing your own agent and fighting for your work. It means playing your own publicist. It means spending hours upon hours sending out emails to book bloggers, putting out feelers for book reviews or interest in participating in a blog tour. It means coming up with ideas for blog posts. It means spending a lot of your time doing things for yourself.

At least for me, writing isn't my method of income. Sure, I've made a little money with my writing. Not enough to keep my bills paid, so I have to work a day job. So I have to manage my time to make sure I get my day job done as well as take care of all the writing and promotional things I need to do. I spend at least four to five hours a day on my writing between blogging, writing, and working on promotional things. That's good on my days off or when I'm on holiday from work. Not so easily done when I have to work all day.

I'll never regret the decision to become a self-published author. But I know now that it takes more than writing a novel to really become one. There's so much more involved. You have to be your own publicist, your own agent, editor, and cheerleader.

You have to fight for yourself, because no one else is going to.