Someone recently asked me how to balance book writing and marketing. What a great question!  

Watch my video below, or read the post to find out when to concentrate on your writing and when to focus on marketing. 

Hello my lovely writers!

Someone asked a good question recently and I wanted to share it, and my answer, with you.

The question was, how do you balance book writing and marketing?

Particularly as an indie author but, more increasingly if you’re a traditionally published author with a small press and you don’t have the budget from the big houses, you’ve got to do a lot of the marketing yourself. So how do you do it? 

How to balance book writing and marketing

Balancing writing and marketing is an ever-changing tide. If you’re between books and book launches, it’s a quieter time, which makes it easier to do both writing and marketing. You can devote a good chunk of your time to writing and then, depending on the time available to you, you can focus on marketing. 

In between launches, you can spend less time on marketing unless you’re actively doing promotions, putting a sale on a book or bundling some books, etc. But when it comes to launch time and you’re gearing up for a book to be published, marketing your book becomes more intense. I have certainly experienced that over the course of this year because I had three books coming out. 

That was a pretty intense time marketing-wise, as I had to let people know about the books, get them excited about them and let them know when they were coming out. Then, when my books were out, I had to ask people if they knew the books were out and point them in the direction of the reviews. 

You need to get information out there and let people know your book is available because, if you don’t let anyone know your book exists, how do they know it’s there to buy? Think of marketing as letting people know about your book. 

You need to build an email list

Like everything we do in life, there are tides, and the amount of marketing you need to do and where you focus that marketing is going to change as your career evolves and where your interest lies. 

But the most important thing to do is to build an email list. Creating an email list is the first thing you’ve got to do, as it’s the most potent part of your marketing.

If you need some help with email marketing, I have an online workshop that covers this called Email Marketing for Authors.

I hope this has helped you balance book writing and marketing.

If you’re an indie author or with a small press and you’ve got to do some of your own marketing, have a think about what time you have available to you and where you want to spend that time letting people know about your book, then just get stuck in there. 

Happy marketing!

Emma xx

sitting woman with orange blouse

Emma Dhesi

Emma Dhesi is a Certified Author Accelerator Book Coach and bestselling author who helps writers let go of perfectionism, self-doubt and writer's block through her signature programme, Unlock Your Creative Block.

She is the host of the YouTube Channel, Emma Dhesi, where she interviews debut and experienced authors alike.

Through her 1:1 coaching programme, Emma helps new authors start and finish their first novel.

Emma provides personal written feedback on their pages and guides them through the emotional rollercoaster that is writing a novel!