Finding Time for Marketing

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Phillippians 4:19.

I met with a writing friend yesterday. We talked about how a writing career demands a certain amount of marketing be done to sustain the writing. She had heard at a writing conference that for every one hour of writing you must put in one hour of marketing.

I concurred. “But I don’t have that much time to do both!” she cried. “I barely have enough time to write an hour a day during the week.”

“What we’re doing right now can be considered marketing,” I told her. “Talking about writing over coffee while learning about people to contact or new magazines at the library or a change in editors – all of that can be considered marketing. Browsing through magazines at the doctor’s office or while standing in line at the check-out or while waiting on your child to finish his piano lesson. That can all be marketing time.”

She looked relieved. It would be hard to squeeze 5 extra hours of marketing into an already busy schedule for someone who manages 5 hours of writing per week. But if you look at it as squeezing those hours into time you already have and using it constructively, it isn’t so hard to do.

How have you worked in your marketing time to your schedule? Has it been a challenge to find time to do it? Or have you found niches of time to expand your writing horizons?

Write and let me know your newest marketing strategy. I’m always looking for ideas in this area. Take care,