Priming for Prime Day

I scheduled a promotion for Professor Love on Amazon, and its price will drop to $0.99 on Wednesday, July 13. My other book, Items May Have Shifted: How to Travel With Your Baby or Toddler, will be FREE during this period as well.

Of course, this was before I was aware that Prime Day is the day before! I can't help wondering what the Prime Effect will be, if any. Does it matter, though? Of course it does!

I've been writing professionally one way or another for 25 years, but I'm very new to this whole self-pub Kindle thing. And I'm still wrapping my head around all the moving parts! It seems that for every one hour of writing I get done, there needs to be almost twice that of marketing, business planning, and strategy research.

The onus is on the author to find and connect with review sites, related blogs, Facebook groups, Twitter, other author/reader groups, build lists, research different advertising and promotional opportunities... It doesn't leave much room for the actual WRITING sometimes!

This weekend I wrote 2500 words of a "Quickie" novella plus a 1400-word post for a blog tour for my other nom de plume (NJS Kaye) and spent time on Twitter (@itemsmayshift), scheduled all my books/writing/production/promotion week by week from now until January, and designed some covers for upcoming Quickies. Oh, and parented, blah blah blah.

But I feel as though I did not spend enough time working on how to increase reviews and my visibility. I HATE that feeling. I understand that it's part of the business, and certainly I love exploring the nooks and crannies in which readers hide. And I'm so fascinated about how everyone responds differently to what they read.

I would rather talk to readers about books and authors we all enjoy, instead of trying to seek them out as "buyers" and "list-builders." I'm nervous enough about what I'm writing, I don't need to try to spam the web with false self-confidence!

So what is the balance for a new indie author between production and promotion? The 80/20 rule suggests that 20% of my effort will net 80% of my results, but I'm finding it to be the opposite! Maybe I'm doing it all wrong.

Ah hell, maybe I should just stick to writing and hope that readers magically find my stories. That's totally realistic, right?

As for Prime Day, I'm just going to close my eyes and not look at any reports until next week. Maybe.