This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.
by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
The last four weeks have been a swirl as we’ve hit the six month mark and the publicity and marketing machines have started turning. In the last month, I had a media luncheon to attend, and thank you notes to write to all those who attended; I had a Bookseller letter to write, and handwritten notes to add in for the booksellers I met on my last two book tours. On top of that, I’ve had meetings with my publicist and the Crown marketing team, and I’ve been trying to get the idea for my next book into shape, because I’d love to be able to start working on it soon. Then there’s articles to brainstorm and pitch, my book trailers to get into shape, and FriendStories needs a lot of polishing and a ton of outreach for contributors as we look toward a 2014 launch. Now that my new website is up, it needs to be revised, and I am trying to stay active on social media, which also means building a Facebook page, and my Amazon author page. And I’ve got to reboot my newsletter, which involves signing up for a newsletter service, culling my newsletter subscribers from the last time I sent it (in 2010, I think), figuring out which addresses are now defunct, and making decisions about its content and frequency.
Not to mention that we are smack dab in the middle of the holidays, and that, for us, the holidays include a certain small someone’s birthday.
In a word, I’m overwhelmed.
By good fortune, and good work, and a good many deadlines.
I realized that my “scribbling notes in a notebook” method of note-taking wasn’t exactly going to cut it anymore. To be fair, I was a devoted Things user for a while, but I’d let that slide. And since I didn’t love that it doesn’t interface with a calendar, I decided to do some research, and ended up with 2Do. I spent yesterday just putting things in it off the top of my head, and ended up with 84 tasks. 84!!! Yes, it can seem overwhelming to look at what I have to accomplish as a number, but since I feel like I’ve been carrying all that around inside my skull, it is a real relief to download them somewhere.
And though I’d love to write more, I have 84 things to accomplish…