Laina Turner's Blog, page 22

How to Have an Effective Novel Brainstorming Session

 One questions I get asked a lot is how I get my ideas. I can’t really answer that because most come to me at the most random time. However, those ideas are usually vague story ideas. They’re not fully developed story lines. It takes brainstorming to come up with enough ideas to piece together to make an entire book. 

The main story idea is the easy part. The rest of it is what makes me want to pull my hair out.

While one of the aspects I enjoy about being an author is figuring out the storyline. It’s like a puzzle. It can also be incredibly frustrating. I know I’m not the only person who struggles with being able to figure out all the scenes to get from the beginning to the end. So I thought I’d write about how I brainstorm for my novels.

The most important thing you must do when sitting down to have your novel brainstorming session is to be open minded. You may have a story idea in your head but be open to it going down a different path than your originally planned one. You never know where you might end up. Not being open to new ideas kind of defeats the brainstorming idea in the first place.

The second most important thing is to have colored pens and post it notes. I truly believe that fun planning tools help get your creative juices flowing (I’m only a little bit joking). 

Personally, I couldn’t live without post-its and colored pens.

The goal of my brainstorming sessions is to solve the problem of needing content for a 70k book when all I have is a 3 sentence idea.

Easy, right?

Getting started is often the hardest part of the brainstorming process. Once I get going the ideas come faster and faster. Now that doesn’t mean they’re good ideas, but that’s fine. Sometimes you need a lot of bad ideas to find that one good one. At least I do. If I could make money from bad ideas…I would be filthy rich.

When I brainstorm, I take one thought at a time and try to exhaust the possibilities before moving to the next.

For example, if I know that Jack is the victim of a gunshot wound and he’s going to be found by Jill, I have a few places to start with my brainstorming.

1. Where is Jill going to find Jack?

2. Where was the gunshot wound? 

3. What was Jill’s reaction?

Let’s take #1 Where is Jill going to find Jack.

Since I love my post-it notes, I will pull them out and start writing all the places I can think of and put them in my notebook. I keep them in a notebook because I can peel off the ones I’m using and then keep all the old ideas for later.

I can easily come up with 25 places, but not all will be ones I want to use. Let’s say my 3 favorites are:

1. The garden

2. The Library

3. The car

That gives me 3 completely different scene possibilities. I then brainstorm ideas on each one of those.  

1. The garden

    A. She finds him by the roses, is that symbolic?

    B. She finds him in the fountain thinking at first he drown which sends her down the wrong path at first

    C. She doesn’t find him. Her dog finds him as he’s hidden in the bushes. 

Get where I’m going? Instead of trying to find the perfect idea that connects to the next I come up with several and then decide what might fit. I am constantly surprised at how often I go with an idea that wasn’t my first choice because it makes for a much more interesting storyline. I just hadn’t thought of it yet.

I also make sure to set a timer so I don’t spend 3 hours brainstorming ideas for one topic. I usually set my timer in 15 minutes increments. It is long enough to get more ideas than I’ll ever need and short enough not to exhaust my brain. 

When you brainstorm and you’re not focused on trying to figure out how these ideas might work together you’ll feel a lot freer and your imagination will run wild. 

Go grab your post it’s and get started!

 

The post How to Have an Effective Novel Brainstorming Session appeared first on Laina Turner.

Create a Writing Goal You Can Stick To

 If you’re anything like me, you tend to set super high goals that are unrealistic and eventually end in frustration. 

You know, like losing 20 lbs 3 days. 

To be successful at anything you must be realistic in your goal setting which makes it important for all authorpreneurs to create a writing goal you can stick to.

I’ve said before that it doesn’t matter if you take 2 months to finish your novel or 2 years you’re still a writer. The key is you’re making consistent progress toward your goal. If every day you’re just a little bit closer that’s a win!

I will admit that if you want to make a living as a writer. If you want to make a full-time career at this. Then you need to write a little faster than a book every 2 years. 

A writing goal for a career minded author needs to be aggressive. The name of the game is:

write a book
publish
write another

I’m sure you’ve heard the key to achieving any goal is writing it down. But I know it can be scary to write down an aggressive goal. As a writer when you think about how many words you must write,  words that are good enough not to be deleted, is daunting.

Trust me my updated production plan has me writing just under 2500 words a day through the end of the year. That in itself isn’t too bad, but those are finished words. I can sit down and write 2500 words of garbage in an hour. Heck, I can probably do that in 15 minutes. Writing 2500 words of quality dialogue that people want to read? Well, that takes a little more time.

The 2500 words a day goal is doable (for me). Barely. 

I admit it does make me nervous. If I get sick again, or one of the kids gets sick, or anything unforeseen happens, and I miss a couple of days of writing it could totally screw me up. But let’s face it. Any goal regardless of how hard or easy can get screwed up by the unforeseen.

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That’s why I would never go higher than 2500 words. At least the way my life is now. I know my limits. I know that if each day I can stretch myself to 2600 words I can bank some in case that unforeseen does happen.

So going back to writing that goal down I do. Each Sunday I plan out my week on ical (Apple calendar) and print it out. I know that’s overkill, but I like to look at it on paper. I put 2500 words at the top of each day and then block out my writing time. I always put that on my schedule first as it is the time I protect the most. It’s one of the few things I can’t do at all if I’m multi tasking or being interrupted constantly. I know I need to schedule the time where it will just be me, my thoughts and my laptop.

I track my words each day on a basic spreadsheet, so I know where I’m at to my goal and if I fall behind I plan that in the next day. If I’m ahead, I pretend I’m not.

The key to creating a goal you can stick with is the realistic part. I can’t stress that enough. You don’t want to set yourself up for failure by saying you’ll write 5,000 words a day if there is no way you will find the time to make that happen. 

Creating a production schedule and goals around an impossible number will cause you frustration and you might lose your motivation. 

Which is the opposite of what you want.

You want your goal to excite you. Yes, sometimes I sit in front of my computer screen nervous that I won’t be able to come up with 2500 words to write. But I’m also excited at the prospect of getting one step closer to the finishing of the book. 

Finishing my book and seeing it through to publication is the reward for all my hard work. THAT keeps me motivated.

Having several mini rewards to look forward to is also important. On days when writing is a struggle, I make myself little bargains. Rewarding myself with Starbucks or Dairy Queen (yes most of my rewards revolve around food). 

Have a big celebration when you reach the end. For career authors finishing one book means starting the next but it’s important to stop, at least for a few minutes, and enjoy your accomplishment. 

Finishing a book, no matter how many times you’ve done it, is a big deal. Plus, when you know you have a celebration to look forward to it will be much easier for you to get started on the next one.

Creating goals isn’t usually too difficult. However, creating the action steps to ensure you get to your goal and stick with it can be more tricky. But if you are committed to a career as an author you can do it.

Do you need help setting goals and action steps to reach your author goals? I’d love to hear from you!

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The post Create a Writing Goal You Can Stick To appeared first on Laina Turner.

RWA 2017

 RWA 2017 finished Saturday, July 30th and I’m still riding a high from it. Although I spent the last two weeks sick and still don’t feel 100%.

Too much excitement I guess. I was so annoyed that I felt too horrible to start re-writing my writing production and marketing plan. That’s how awesome this conference was.

I’ve been to a lot of conferences in my day, and I can say hands down, 100%, absolutely, positively, that this was the best conference I’ve ever attended. 

For many reasons. 

From a high-level perspective, it was a great conference because the people I met were amazing. And each of the sessions was full of great information. 

And I mean FULL!

Seriously!

I felt the organizers reached into my mind and pulled out all the things I’ve been stressing about or wondering about the last 12 months and said, ” here you go, Laina, here are all the answers you need.”

I didn’t even leave any sessions early or skip the last day. Which happens a lot at conferences because after a couple of days I’m over it. And I took about 50 pages of notes. That’s how relevant the information was to me. As I was re-reading my notes this past weekend and trying to get them all organized, there were 5 things that really stood out to me that I wanted to share.

1. Self-published isn’t a dirty word (or rather phrase) – I went to Book Expo in June, and while it was another great conference I plan on attending again next year, it only had a small number of sessions geared to the indie author. Though more than I expected based on the target audience. There wasn’t anything at that conference disparaging indie’s, but we weren’t overly promoted either

RWA, however, I felt embraced the indie author. So much more than I expected. From the first session, I felt so empowered as an author. It was career affirming. I still have so much to learn, but I realized how much I HAVE learned in the last 8 years of this career and it felt good.

2. A series is important to make a living as a self-published author – Most my books are part of a series more so by default than intent. Lucky me I guess. Several authors talked about the strategy of writing a series to build up your fan base. If you have fans who love your series which in turn creates built in buyers as you churn out more books.

3. Have a tribe of people to lean on – Writing by nature is a solitary pursuit. We authors like to spend time in our heads making up stories. That’s the job. But going it alone all the time isn’t healthy or fun.

You need to have people surrounding you who are in your industry – who truly know and understand your frustrations and in turn, can help celebrate your successes.

You can look for writing friends in Facebook groups, at conferences, on social media. 

4. Never stop learning how to be a better writer – I know I’m a much better writer now than when I started 10 years ago. I’m a better writer after the RWA conference than I was before. 

As your writing develops and changes your stories will become better which will attract more readers. Focus on one area at a time that you feel could be improved.

5. No one is an expert at marketing because the game keeps changing – I know I am always in search of that perfect strategy and end up frustrating myself a lot because there is no one size fits all strategy.

You need to be ready to pivot at a moments notice if something isn’t working. You also need to be able to take risks because it can be hard to know what will work for you until you try something.

I don’t remember leaving a conference thinking DAMN; I CAN DO THIS! I’ve left having good ideas and such but nothing to this extreme.

I have tons of future blog post ideas from what I’ve learned, and I can’t wait to share. To get access to my current list of resources sign up here.

 

The post RWA 2017 appeared first on Laina Turner.

10 Steps to Creating a Book Marketing Plan

You have your book written, and you’re ready to start creating a book marketing plan.

Well, guess what. You’re late.

You should have started your marketing plan the minute you started your book. But don’t worry. You’re starting now.

Marketing the book is one of the less desirable activities of an author. Accounting is probably the least desirable, but marketing can be a huge time suck. Many authors find it difficult to balance both writing and marketing.

The trick is to create a game plan. Then you can determine how much time you want to spend getting to the goals.

1. Define your audience – Just because you write romance novels doesn’t mean your target audience is all women. Well, I guess technically it could be but you can’t be everything to everyone. There are a lot of books out there, and you want to find a way to target an audience who will want to read your specific book. Take a moment and write out a thorough description of who you feel your ideal reader is. Then tape it up on your wall and think about her (or him) everytime you start to work on marketing. Is your marketing reading that person?

2. Decide your budget – Don’t let the word budget scare you. You CAN create a marketing plan without spending money. That’s the beauty of social media. But you can also find many low-cost ways to get more exposure and grow your readership. You can do Facebook ads for as little as $5 a day, and there are several sites where you can buy a low-cost ad. I use FreeBooksy a lot and get great results for my small investment. You can set a budget a month at a time starting with zero budget. As you sell books and see whats working with your marketing slowly put dollars into advertising.

3. Marketing goals – What’s your ultimate goal. Build your email list, build your social media following, sell a million books? I would expect you would have some variation of all those goals but figure out what they are and WRITE THEM DOWN. A goal not written down isn’t a REAL goal.

4. Decide how much social media how much face to face – Authors often overlook networking in person in their local communities. In person, events take more time, but I feel that you should have a mixture of at least some face to face marketing with all your virtual marketing. The library is a great resource. They love for authors to come in and talk about their books (and if you use Smashwords or Draft to Digital) you can distribute your ebooks in most libraries). You could hold a book reading or a small workshop. Word of mouth works. Local boutiques also enjoy artists coming in and holding actives. It gets more people in the door for them.

I would advise you to be careful when planning your marketing activities and how much time you have to devote to the marketing. It can very easily consume you.

5. Contest ideas – people love winning things. It doesn’t have to be a $100 gift card or something huge. Most people like winning for the sake of winning. I’ve had great success running contests with a $5 Amazon gift card prize. I use rafflecopter and ask readers to do certain things, re-tweet, like a post, comment on something, and then that action enters them into the raffle. Now not everyone who enters your raffle will become a loyal reader it’s a great way to get someone new to notice you. And for $5 even if I only gain one loyal reader it’s worth it to me.

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6. Time frame – Don’t do anything without a time frame. It’s the guaranteed way to make sure you don’t reach your goals because something will always interfere with your plan. If your book launches in October and it’s now July what actions do you need to take each week to get to your marketing goals?

7. Good graphics – All social media platforms are noisy. You need to have a compelling message and attractive graphics for yours to stand out. I am a writer, and I have no eye for art. I gave up a long time ago trying to create my own graphics. Especially, for Pinterest and Instagram which are heavily image based. But when budgets are tight, and you have to make your own, Canva and Picmonaey are two amazing resources. They both have free versions for when you’re just getting started.

8. Teasers and tagline – Marketing your books sin;t all shameless self-promotion. You want to engage your audience not constantly sell to them. But when crafting your book sales promos, you want to pull out your most compelling pieces of dialogue to use as teasers and tagline. Think about movie trailers. I can list several movies where I thought the trailer was amazing and once I saw the movie thought the best part of the movie was what they put in the trailer. But that’s how they got everyone in the theater. You want to do the same with your books. Give people little snippets that will make them want more.

9. Analyze your results – You need to measure the results of what you’re doing, or you won’t know what works and what doesn’t. When you decide on a marketing idea to try then decide what kind of outcome you need to deem it successful. For example, if you boost a Facebook post for $5 and sell 3 books to break even and you sell 3 is that good enough?

10. Schedule paid advertising – While you can sell books without paid advertising it helps. You should try and scrounge up a few bucks to promote a new book at least. So you can get as much buzz going on that new book as possible. When you’re looking at your marketing strategy, you want to schedule in paid advertising to coincide with other marketing efforts so you can capitalize on your efforts. Most good advertisers fill up a couple of months in advance so it’s not something you can wait to last minute.

BONUS Build your email list. I can’t say this enough. An email list is a golden goose of selling books (that’s probably a bad analogy, but you know what I mean). The more engaged fans you have on your email list, the more potential buyers you have. Buyers who are waiting anxiously for your book to come out. If they liked you enough to sing up for your smiling list, then it’s a pretty good bet most will purchase your book. Especially, if you offer preferred pricing to your awesome readers. Give your email list members exclusive deals which can also entice more people to sign up.

Never stop writing. Many authors are tempted to hold off on their next book while marketing their current. Not a good idea. You have to do both things simultaneously. If not you’ll work your butt off building your readership and then if you ignore them while writing your next book you’ll lose them and have to start over.

Sustainable a living as an author isn’t easy. But then if it were easy we wouldn’t want to do it now, would we?

The post 10 Steps to Creating a Book Marketing Plan appeared first on Laina Turner.

What Do You Do When You Can’t Keep Up?

Remember that ad from the 80’s for Calgon.

Sometimes when I look at my to do list that’s what I think about. I want someone to take me away from the never ending things that need doing. Or do them for me. A fairy godmother would totally work. Is that too much to ask for?

A fairy godmother would totally work. Is that too much to ask for?

In the last few years, life has become busier and busier. Honestly, I don’t even understand how it’s possible to get any busier, but it seems to happen. I blame it on my kids. I used to think when they were small and less independent they took up all my time, and while I didn’t want to rush them in growing up, I was looking forward to when they were more grown and needed me less.

Except now at 11 and 15 they seem to need me way more. In a different way. Before you think I’m complaining about these wonderful children, I’m not. Well, maybe a little. But I do cherish these times. I know they won’t last forever and I need to take advantage when I can. Lucky for me I have a job that is flexible. Though that is often why I struggle to keep up. I must admit I don’t have good boundaries when it comes to my kids. Especially, because I want to DO IT ALL! I feel if I think hard enough then a solution allowing me to be 3 places at once while working on my next book will magically appear.

Especially, because I want to DO IT ALL! I feel if I think hard enough then a solution allowing me to be 3 places at once while working on my next book will magically appear.

So far it hasn’t.

I know we all have our moments where we want to pull our hair out and think there’s no way to get it all done. While sometimes that’s true usually where there is a will there’s a way. It’s about prioritization and focus.

And learning how to say NO!

I find that saying NO is the hardest thing most of us do. Or don’t do.

But to take charge of your life, you have to learn to say no. You can’t let life overwhelm you to the point where you shut down and say screw it and pour a glass of wine (and no I’ve never done that – hahaha). Because then life owns you and you want to own your life.

The trick is combating overwhelm is to take one thing at a time. Not spend your time spinning in circles because you’re thinking about all 50 things you must get done. Ensuring you won’t get a damn thing done.

The one thing that’s become more apparent to me in the last couple years is there are many things that can make life crazy and unsettled besides work. I used to think people who said they were stressed out if their house wasn’t in order were nuts and borderline OCD but I completely understand now what they mean.

I think I can block out my messy house and unorganized life but in reality, I can’t. If only the cleaning fairies would come while I’m asleep. They must be partying with the fairy godmothers of to do lists because I never see any of them. I mention the messy house things because it’s visual. If you can see a mess and feel you don’t have time to clean it stresses you out. When your to do list reaches epic proportions, and you can see it start at you, taunting you, challenging you, it can often cause you to be paralyzed by fear and do nothing. Which just makes it worse.

Which just makes it worse.

I’ve finally realized that to keep up on my busy life; I need to stop making it so busy. I’m the one who needs to take control and not take on too much.

What a novel concept.

Yes, there are a lot of things I need to do that can’t be avoided, but there are also things I can learn to say no to.

Some questions I ask myself if I’m waffling on a task on whether I should take it on or not.

1. Does it fit into my short term or long term goals?

2. Is doing it going to make me happy?

3. What’s going to happen if I don’t do it?

4. Does it impact others?

If the answers to 1 & 2 are a yes then my first inclinations to say no. Unless there’s going to be repercussions in the answers to 3 & 4. Not everything is all about me (though it should be, right).

Take the time to think through a decision and how it will fit into your life or disrupt it. Weigh the pros and cons and make your decision.

How do you keep yourself from taking on too much?

The post What Do You Do When You Can’t Keep Up? appeared first on Laina Turner.

When to quit your current writing project

When to quit your current writing project.

I’m not a big fan of quitting. I think if you start something you should see it through. It’s why I never have half empty wine bottles around my house. I see that baby to the end. Each and every time.

I’m so not a quitter.

But there can come a time in a writer’s life where you need to know when to hit the delete key and walk away (am I the only one who thought of Kenny Rogers with that sentence)?

Sometimes the story you’re working on so hard to get to come to fruition isn’t going to happen. No matter how much time and effort you put into it.

I’ve recently had to make that difficult decision myself. I was organizing my files. A method of procrastination but something that really needed to be done. I realized I had 5 books I’d started writing but never finished. Some I’m only a few thousand words in, a couple 20K or more. But they’ve sat on my cyber shelf for 2 years now, some even longer.  When I was reading through them to jog my memory on what they were about, I wasn’t impressed.

I didn’t like what I was reading, I didn’t even hate it which in my opinion is worse. I take hate over apathy any day. I think emotion is important. I felt blah about what I was reading. I didn’t have a glimmer of emotion unless you count the dread I felt at the idea of making myself finish some of these. Not a good position to be in when you’re a writer.

So it got me thinking. Why didn’t I delete them and move on? Save me the headache and the stress of dwelling on it.

I felt I had so much work in some of those drafts it would be such a waste to delete them without even trying to revisit them. After all, time is money and to throw those out would be throwing away money. It doesn’t make good business sense to throw away money.

So I did some thinking and came up with a list of questions to ask myself to determine what I should do.

Is the story good and I’m no longer interested, or is it a bad plot?
Do I like the characters?
Is the genre one I still want to write?
Does the book fit into my 5-year author plan?
What was my feeling about the book when I started it? Do I even remember?
Do I think the draft is one I might be interested in pursuing in the future?
Is it going to hurt anything by not finishing it?
Why didn’t I finish it before?

None of the questions are that deep, but I started writing those stories for a reason. I liked them a one time. Yet I also stopped them for a reason. So I needed to figure out what these reasons were.

After I made my list of questions and answered them I didn’t feel much closer to a solution. I finally asked myself one thing.

Do I want to work on this anymore? If the answer was no, I hit delete. Out of my files and out of my mind.

I was done thinking about it. Wasting valuable time I could put to better use.

I didn’t delete all of them but the ones I did…It felt so liberating. I’ve had these on the back of my mind for so long. Feeling guilty because I wasn’t working on them but not working on them because I didn’t like where the story was headed so had no motivation. It was such a relief to be done and move on.

As a writer, I have to feel connected to my stories. I need to feel passionate, or at least interested in what I am writing. If I don’t then there’s no need to waste my time. None of us can force the creativity. To an extent.

I say to an extent because starting a story and not finishing is a bad habit to get into and one often used by authors to procrastinate. If you want to be a professional author you can’t just write when you’re moved to do so. That’s not how it works. Your writing must be taken seriously and treated like a job.

If you bail on a WIP (work in progress) every time you don’t feel like working on it anymore, you may never finish a book. I know I sure wouldn’t. Writing is hard work.

Successful authors spend time on writing whether they’re in the mood or not. It’s like everything else it’s not going to fun or may all the time. Sometimes it will downright suck, but you must push yourself.

So how can you tell if there’s no hope and you should kick your draft to the curb or if you’re just stuck and need to push yourself to finish?

I believe it comes down to how you are emotionally connected to the piece you’re writing. When writing gets tough but you are emotionally invested you will want to finish no matter how hard it is. If you’re apathetic about a piece, then it’s probably not worth your time.

If you find yourself feeling that way about everything you write, then you may have more of confidence and motivation issue. Another set of problems all authors faced from time to time. We are typically our own worst critique, and there are many successful authors who don’t actually love the act of writing because it’s hard.

But the difference between those who are successful and those who aren’t? The successful ones did it anyway.

So choose wisely what you don’t finish!

The post When to quit your current writing project appeared first on Laina Turner.

10 things your book needs to sell

10 things your book needs to sell besides readers.

When your goal is to make a living as an author you want to write a book that sells.

Duh. I know. It goes without saying.

But selling your book isn’t as easy as it sounds.

No one book will appeal to every reader out there. Different books appeal to people for various reasons. But there are things that good – selling – books usually have in common.

Publishing isn’t easy. Especially when the goal is publishing for profit.

There are many things to think about and to execute to the best of your ability. As an authorpreneur, you don’t want to leave anything on the table.

You can’t afford to leave anything on the table.

Good cover – the cover draws the reader in. Whether on a table in a bookstore or virtually as an ebook, the cover is the author’s chance to get a new reader interested. Since authors and readers rely on social media having a great cover is an even bigger asset to your marketing strategy.
Enticing back blurb – this tells the potential reader enough about your story to make them want to read the rest and find out what happens. It’s a tease, the first bite of a double chocolate cake that leaves you wanting more.
Engaging characters – it’s human nature to want to connect with the hero/heroine of a story and see them succeed. Your characters need to be multi-faceted, realistic, and humanistic. Create a character your readers can root for. Especially if you’re writing a series. It will keep people coming back.
A plot that moves forward – there is a difference between literary and commercial fiction when it comes to plot pace.  For purposes of this post, I’m talking about commercial. You want your plot to move forward fast enough to keep the reader engaged but not too fast that you lose them. A book is full of obstacles and successes that continue until the final resolution. It’s how you spread them out that sets the pace.
Change/outcome/growth in character – characters aren’t perfect. I mean they can be, but it would be kind of boring if they started and ended at the same place. You want your characters to have flaws and problems they are working on. Your reader needs to identify with them and want them to succeed. And get excited at the end when they’ve changed for the better somehow.
Target audience – marketing is a huge part of book sales. You need to have a good understanding of who your target audience is so you can direct your marketing to that demographic. You don’t want to try and sell to everyone. I wrote an in-depth post on this topic here.
Marketing – this is the key to creating your full-time author career. You have to attract new readers and get them to purchase your books all while writing and releasing new books for them to buy. It can be quite the balancing act and get overwhelming since it can easily overtake your time if you don’t manage it well.
Title – You want an impactful title that will, much like the cover, grab the reader and pull them in to notice your book, pick it up, and read more so they buy it.
Exciting story – This is kind of a no-brainer but one I feel I must mention. Fiction is entertainment, and you want to write a book that entertains your reader.
Consistent writing and marketing – To build a career as an author you have to consistently write, market, and repeat over and over and over. If you don’t your sales will falter.
Some of these elements are story driven, and some are marketing driven. It goes to show that you can’t have one without the other if you truly want to make a living at writing. Trying to balance writing and marketing is the hardest part of the job. You need to constantly be staying up to date with the current marketing trends, so you know what’s working.

Joanna Penn just recently updated her book How To Market A Book: Third Edition (Books for Writers Book 2)[image error]. It’s full of great tips. If you’re serious about making a living at this writing thing the I’d encourage you to check it out.

Happy Writing!

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The post 10 things your book needs to sell appeared first on Laina Turner.

Are you Productive or just Busy?

 In today’s ever increasingly crazy world it can be hard to differentiate between being productive not just busy

I’m busy all the freakin time but I’m not productive all the time.

How often do you claim you are just too busy?

I know I used the B-word constantly because I feel like I’m always rushing from one thing to another. If I’m honest with myself much of my busyness is self-inflicted in non-necessary areas. This makes me feel crazed and completely unproductive. 

It’s not necessary to make sure I’m caught up with whatever Real Housewives franchise is currently on or that I’m up to date with all my Facebook friends.

It’s like a nervous tic. When I don’t want to do something I find something to do that wastes time. Then when I run out of time to do my task, I cry and whine that I’m so busy.

I’m very skilled at being busy all day with nothing to show for it. I’ve had to learn to refocus myself on what’s important and more importantly hold myself accountable to my job. One downside of working for yourself. No one is riding me to get things done. You have to be self-motivated.

So how do you turn your “busyness” into productivity?

It starts with a to-do list. If it ain’t written down, it ain’t getting done. Now just because I have a list doesn’t automatically mean the tasks will get checked off. But it’s a step in the right direction, and I know I have this list that’s looming over me. 

When the tasks are all in my head, it’s not as easy. It can also give the illusion of more to do than you actually have which is more stressful.

The act of writing things down helps me feel more motivated to do something. But past that, how I’ve learned to hold myself accountable to being productive is by tracking my time. My writing is my full-time job, and I need to treat it as such and show up every day ready to work.

I need to be a better employee for myself, even better than I’d treat a regular job because I don’t get paid unless I produce. And sometimes even then that’s a gamble. Being an authorpreneur doesn’t mean a guaranteed paycheck every Friday.

The joys of entrepreneurship

Now I don’t work a traditional 9-5 but each week I block schedule my tasks around all the kids’ activities, working out, and manicures. I couldn’t possibly be productive with unmanicured nails. And I commit to working that time.

When I sit down to work on a specific task, I make a note of when I start and stop. Not every time I go to refill my coffee (which would be impossible to track) but the task in its entirety. 

I then track it in my calendar, and each week I add up the hours and divide into my weekly revenue to get the average hourly rate. 

Which is super scary sometimes. It’s always best to do this calculation in the evening with a cocktail.

This tracking does several things for me.

1.  It makes sure I’m actually working on projects and accomplishing something. 

2.  It allows me to track how long certain tasks take so I can better plan my time in the future.

3.  I am a professional writer who needs to make money to support my family. Tracking my hourly breakdown helps me spot inefficiencies, where I’m putting the wrong emphasis, and where I need to work harder. Also, while calculating my hourly wage can often be depressing, sometimes it’s good and that my friend is a huge motivator.

4. It gives me something to pull out and show all the people who think I play on the computer for a living and say look at this! OK, it’s just my kids who say that, but still.

Being accountable for what you do, or don’t do, is the only way to turn busy into productive. You need to find that internal motivator. 

It’s not always easy to make yourself do what you know you should do versus what you want to do, but keep your big picture in mind.

Netflix, as awesome as it is, isn’t going to help your author career. 

Now, get to work!

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The post Are you Productive or just Busy? appeared first on Laina Turner.

The Art of Getting Started

Life, Writing, and In Pursuit of Fabulous is a podcast for women to discuss writing tips, current events, and other hot topics designed to inspire, build, nurture, & empower women to realize their full potential in whatever they choose to do.

The hardest part of achieving a goal sometimes is just getting started. There are very few real reasons why you can’t get started. It’s about having the right mindset.

If you have the right mindset, you can achieve anything. You’re fabulous!

The post The Art of Getting Started appeared first on Laina Turner.

The Law of Abundance

 Every single one of us deserves the best. We all deserve whatever it is we dream of and wish for. 

You might look at someone else’s life and be jealous thinking “why don’t I have that?” Well, the truth is you can. While it can seem as if things just drop in peoples lap, I don’t believe that’s actually the case. 

People who have the “perfect” life, the things you want in your life have worked for it in one way or another.

 When it comes to business endeavors regardless of what industry the entrepreneur works in, there are common fears.

No one will want what I’m selling

There are already millions of competitors

I hate that negative talk. I firmly believe there is enough to go around. We tend to limit ourselves in our own mind.

Amazon sells about a million ebooks a day (data from 2016). That number shows that we all can have a nice piece of the pie.

There is a certain power positive thinking has, and positivity promotes so many good feelings that motivate us.

Regardless of your beliefs, you can’t underestimate the power of your mind. When you are in a negative thinking mode telling yourself no one is going to buy your books, you don’t have enough talent to make it, or any number of things your career is more likely to follow that path.

Have you ever read anything about a business man/woman, athlete, actor who made it big and then went on the interview circuit saying how she thought she sucked and would never make it but to her surprise did?

No. You haven’t. There’s a reason for that besides the fact it would make for terrible news. Because people who’ve “made it,” who’ve seemingly overcome major obstacles to be successful all had one thing in common. They believed in themselves and stayed positive. 

They made the decision that they would reach their dreams regardless of what might stand in there way.

It’s not easy. Especially when you come across those obstacles, but you need to focus on the positive even in the times of struggle.

How are some ways you can stay positive and embrace the Law of Abundance?

1. Make the decision that you will achieve your goal. Believe it, and you will achieve it…The Secret.

2. Visualize your achievements as if you’ve already achieved them. I love creating a vision board. I put my images in a binder so I can flip through it every day.

3. Be clear on your goal. You don’t want ambiguity. You need to be very focused on exactly what it is you want. 

4. Write it down. Studies show that people who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them. I try and start every day out by journaling and affirming my goals. It sets my metal tone for the day. 

5. Be grateful. Even when you think life sucks there is so much to be grateful for. Granted it might take a little effort to see that but if you work hard enough, you can. 

6. Don’t worry so much about the how your goal will come true. Focus on daily actions and let them work for you. It’s about having faith.

Think about it. Wouldn’t you rather have faith and be positive even if the result wasn’t what you wanted instead of being all gloomy and negative? 

At least with being positive, your daily life will be more enjoyable. Negativity and head trash you tell yourself hurts you more than anyone else. 

So what have you got to lose?

 

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