Marketing or Writing

I had two guest bloggers scheduled this week. Unfortunately, they both bailed on me.

So… I thought I’d talk about Marketing. Marketing is not my strong point. And not only that, if I blog and post to loops, I find it interferes with my writing.

My marketing includes my blog and my website, and I send out a newsletter four times a year. I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Triberr, Pinterest and Instagram. I haven’t figured out how to use Instagram so I don’t use it. I retweet other authors. I do guest blogs, and group blogs, on other blog sites. I join NN Light and other writing promos and contests. They all take time.

I do Amazon ads but I should be spending more time looking for categories. I also put my last book in Kindle Select. I try to write reviews when I read a book, but I find that also takes time away from my writing.

I’m not sure any of it makes a significant difference. It takes a fair amount of time and that time comes from my writing. It takes me longer to write a book. After working on marketing when I switch to writing my muse says sorry, not today. I may write one hundred words or so, but it doesn’t flow. If I skip marketing and just write I do much better.

And even with Covid I have a bit of a life, walking my dog at least twice a day, grocery shopping, cooking meals, exercising, an occasional Zoom Board meeting and talking to family. More time away from writing. Sigh…

How do you cope with it all and do marketing? And how much marketing do you do?