Free Planning Efficiency illustration and pictureBeing a writer is hard work

and requires a lot of time and effort. The

more time you make for yourself  as a writer

by more efficiently doing what you do on an

everyday basis, the better. Here are 24 tips

to create more author time through simpler

everyday habits.

 

Massaging sore legs and buttocks can help

your body resist the urge to keep plopping on

your bed for excessive napping. Once you lie

down to nap even for just up to half an hour,

you may easily oversleep and not wake up to

your alarm clock. Before lying down, sit up in

bed and try to keep your sleep time between

two and ten minutes. If you feel too drowsy

before it’s time to take a shower or bath, sit

down and sleep for a few minutes or so. It’s

too dangerous to get into the tub if you’re so

drowsy that you feel you’re about to fall over.

 

Try to avoid lying down for a nap after 4:00

PM local time. If you go to bed for a nap after

this time, you’re likely to oversleep and sleep

at least an hour and a half – this in turn can

make you drowsier and more tired.

 

If you have trouble fighting the tendency to

keep falling back into bed for more nap time,

get up and have at least 20 sips of cold water

then walk around your home for a few

minutes. If this doesn’t do the trick, lie back

down for ten minutes – that should get you

up for good.

 

Stand up some during your computer sessions,

especially at night when you’re more prone to

doze off while sitting at your computer station.

I make sure to stand up for about five to seven

minutes frequently, especially if I had an

unproductive night the previous night. Setting

a timer next to your computer every ten minutes

or so can also help you in the event you fall

asleep. Snacking on something like nuts can help

keep you awake while you’re on the computer.

 

If you like to snack while cooking meals, limit

much of that to taking a few bites in between

stirs. If you must wait a few minutes to stir

what’s in your pan/pot/skillet and you already

have everything you planned to fix for the meal

heating up, you have nothing to lose time-wise

by munching on something such as nuts or

shredded cheese.

 

Instead of double working yourself by slicing up

vegetables on your counter or cutting board then

transferring them into your pot or skillet, slice

your way through your veggies over your

cookware after having sharpened your knife to

prevent cutting your hand; the sharper your knife,

the more urgent it is to sharpen it each time you

use it. Don’t worry about making your veggies and

spices hit the entire perimeter of your dish –

whatever you add will automatically work its way

through your entire dish as you stir it; in other

words, just throw it all in the middle basically.

Putting a little bit of salt and other spices in the

center of your concoction before stirring is

sufficient.

 

If you like to eat something such as salsa you may

freeze before preparing your meal, double check to

make sure it’s not in the freezer a few hours before

you start cooking. This may make all the difference

for enabling you to avoid getting a full night’s sleep

prematurely and thus get all your writing and other

work done then walk out the door the next day at

your preferred time. Let me clarify by stating that I

recently had a cooking experience in which if I had

my salsa ready to eat for a few minutes before it was

time to begin meal prep, I probably would have been

too absorbed in what I was doing for my body to

conquer me into forcing me to go to bed sooner than

I planned.

 

Once you’re very familiar with your recipe for a

particular dish, you only need to look at it toward the

end of your preparation stage to make sure you put in

all necessary ingredients. Stopping to look at your

recipe frequently can cost you about five minutes of

time.

 

If an item you’re slicing over your dish is messy such

as a red beet, wipe off your knife and the hand you’re

using to hold the item as you go so you have more

ease pushing off slices that hang onto your knife and

so that the item you’re still cutting up doesn’t fall into

your dish.  If you can’t efficiently slice the beet over

your pot and you’re afraid you may cut yourself on any

given day, start chopping up the beet on a cutting

board.

 

Unsubscribe from emails which don’t usually provide

helpful content and those which feature large popup

boxes which block your view of content you want to

read and don’t give you the option of closing them out

or moving them out of the way.

 

If you choose to lightly cook blueberries and carrot

slices for your dog, separate these from what you’re

cooking for yourself so you don’t spend many minutes

trying to fish out these items from your cookware.

 

Take meats and any fresh vegetables you choose to

freeze such as leafy greens, radishes and zucchini that’s

for tonight’s dinner plus any food you have frozen for

your dog out of the freezer at least a few hours before

you plan to cook so you don’t waste at least 10 minutes

defrosting this stuff in the microwave before

preparing your meal or serving your dog supper. Double

check to make sure you have taken out everything you

need.

 

Try to keep chopping up wet food in your pet’s dish to

within three minutes. I used to spend seven or eight

minutes breaking up each chunk into very small pieces.

Also, don’t waste time trying to get each morsel out of

your pet food and tuna cans.

 

Whenever you’re in the middle of writing a book, try to

spend at least 10 minutes adding to your book at the

beginning of your first computer session daily. If you

spend too much time looking at email, surfing, doing

paid surveys and other things during your first one or

two sessions, you will likely go to bed without having

done any writing, especially if you must go to work

upon waking up.

 

Refuse to lie down when you start feeling drowsy

before it’s time to go to bed, especially if you must go

to work in the morning, in which case going to bed

prematurely may rob you of too much writing time.

The more sleep you have just had over the last several

hours or the last few days and the more emphatically

you say no to overrule your body trying to make you go

to bed now, the more likely you are to be victorious.

 

If you have a less than fully house-trained dog

consistently hovering or pacing around you, let or take

it outside now and wait for it to potty, which shouldn’t

take more than a few minutes. This will save you time

from having to constantly watch your dog to make

sure he doesn’t potty in the house or having to let her

urinate in the house then change her dog pee pads and

clean the floor where she relieved herself with Pine-Sol.

 

After I feed my dog dinner on the nights before I’m to

go to work in the morning, I prefer to brush my teeth

then shave then change out of my work uniform then

get on the toilet before putting on pants I wear around

the house. This works, especially if I don’t have to

spend a lot of time shaving my face and other body

parts, which is every two nights.

 

Get all your shaving and washing up done before

it’s time to watch your local weather report at night. If

I brush my teeth, do all my shaving then wash up my

private area or take a shower before it’s time to watch

the weather forecast at 10:20PM, I will easily eat

supper then get on my computer before I get so

drowsy that I’m forced to go to bed for a few hours

then maybe only get about five to ten minutes to use

my computer before it’s time to get ready to go to work.

 

Stand up while you’re thinking of what to write when

working on your books, letters and email submissions.

You may be surprised how easily it is to fall asleep and

sleep up to an hour while gathering your thoughts at

your computer.

 

If you think you simply can’t afford to lie down to sleep

on any given afternoon or early evening, put items such

as a jacket, backpack and shoe box on your pillow and

in the middle of your bed then keep them there. If you

remove them, you’re giving in and asking for it in

regard to lying down and over-napping.

 

If you plan to bake something such as a pot pie whose

baking time is about an hour, immediately put this in

the oven for your supper upon arriving home from

work then do all you need to do while baking your

item then letting it cool for up to 25 minutes. You’ll

surely avoid napping to prevent a catastrophe in the

event your dish was to burn and you were too sleepy

to wake up to your smoke detector going off.

 

When you’re pressed for time and need to remove

your work clothes after coming home, keep your dog

out of your bedroom so he/she doesn’t slow you

down and get hairs on your wardrobe while you

undress.

 

Follow the 20-20 rule. Looking at objects located 20

feet away from your computer every 20 minutes can

help reduce drowsiness by easing the strain on your

eyes that comes from the light your computer emits.

 

If you’ve been coughing or sneezing a lot or your

nose has run a lot for more than a day, strongly

consider buying Mucinex from a nearby Dollar

General store. The more time you spend covering

your mouth or nose and blowing your nose, the

more time you lose to work on your books.

 

Heeding the instruction you received from this

post should strongly help you create more

author time through simpler everyday habits.

Though I have a long way to go in consistently

doing everything I just covered, I have made

decent inroads in giving myself more time to

work on my books. To view my page which

covers a lot more general tips for authors,

click here.

Free photos of School work

Does it seem like you’re not maximizing the amount

of time you can devote to writing your books to

inform/entertain your readers and hopefully make

good money doing so? I can relate to your dilemma.

As one who moved into my own house just

under a year ago, I have been swamped with

repairs and projects. Although I still

have a good ways to go before I’m fully time-efficient

as a content producer, I have learned a lot and will

share my tips on how you can have more time to

write your books, beginning now.

 

More efficient bathing

• I recommend taking showers instead of baths. It

takes awhile for bath water to run, it’s hard to wash

your hair in a bath, you must rinse out the tub

afterwards and it’s a waste of water, leading to a

higher water bill. Instead of taking a shower/bath

every day, consider taking one every three days and

just washing up your private area on the days in

between.

• The best thing you can do for quicker showers is to

have a good shower head and a good bathtub valve.

After I replaced the shower head I inherited upon

moving into my new house a year ago, I immediately

began having warmer shower water but the water

still wasn’t fully as hot as I would have liked and my tub

faucet soon began leaking nonstop. Many weeks ago, I

had to have a plumber replace the cartridge in my valve

once I was no longer able to run any shower or bath

water. This has already paid dividends on my time in

which my faucet water is now so warm that I don’t have

to waste a minute or two letting the water warm up

before commencing my shower.

• Once you start your shower, wet your hair all over then

shut off the water then lather your hair then rinse your

hair then wet your underarms plus your private area and

buttocks then wet your washcloth, your back brush and

your bar of soap then shut off the water and keep it off

until it’s time to rinse your whole body. If you do all this,

you’ll lower your water bill and likely help the

environment but more importantly, you will surely

extend the lifespan of your shower head immensely as

you lower the overall amount of hot water you use while

bathing; the fewer times you must buy a new shower

head then install it, the more time you have. The

quickest way to fully lather your underarms is to rub

soap over them in a circular motion.

 

Searching for items around your home and elsewhere

less

• It drives me crazy to waste vast time searching for

something. Besides being organized regarding the

placement of everything in your home, it helps to

visualize or verbally tell yourself where you’re

putting something you may not use immediately or

often such as paint, pet shampoo or insect spray.

• Stay aware of what’s on your person at all times.

While mowing my dad’s lawn lately, I had a small

book I brought along tucked inside my partially

buttoned shirt.

At one point, I realized the book was missing;

subsequently, I spent several minutes looking for it

around the front yard and back yard before finding it

on the western side yard behind a hedge. If I had

constantly felt my body for my book, I could have

avoided this predicament.

 

Making your socks last longer

Long toenails puncture socks. By always keeping

your toenails short, you should rarely have to go to

the store or conduct an online search to buy new

socks.

 

Smart refrigeration

• The most important step you can take to prolong

the life of your fridge is to keep it out of direct

sunlight and away from heat sources such as

radiators, stoves and microwave ovens.

• To ensure your unit works properly and to

keep the food inside it colder, make sure

there is five inches of space between this unit and

the wall behind your fridge and on the sides of

this appliance. Also, avoid keeping bags and boxes

alongside any part of your refrigerator. Don’t

overload any part of your icebox, including the

produce drawers, because food requires ample

circulation to stay fresh.

• While refrigerating items like blackberries and

raspberries, keep them sealed in Ziploc bags so

they don’t leak juice into your fridge and thus

make you lose time wiping up the juice as you

try to keep this spill from permeating the rest of

your produce crisper drawer.

• A living organism, mold requires the existence

of moisture in your fridge to thrive. If you opt to

rinse off produce before eating it, make sure to

dry whatever quantity of the produce you don’t

immediately eat before putting it back in the

fridge; if you want to immediately reuse a food

storage container like I often do, rinse it out

then fully dry it before putting it back in the

fridge with food in it.

In the event your unit has a natural tendency to

drip water from its ceiling like mine and you

can’t fight this by wiping up the water with paper

towels and lowering the coldness setting in your

fridge, I recommend freezing any leftovers you

want to have for another meal within the next

few days if you think the food will become moldy

in the refrigerator before you’re ready to eat it

again based on your gut or prior experience.

• Buy organic milk instead of regular milk which

generally spoils or turns completely watery

before the former. Refrigerate your milk

immediately upon returning home and make

sure it’s the first item you put away – adding a

pinch of salt to it can help. In the event it comes

out a little watery while pouring it into a bowl,

shake it up and it should be okay for staying in

good condition for at least two weeks. Before I

began buying organic milk a few weeks ago, the

regular milk I was buying in recent times would

always turn watery within a few days and stay

watery, no matter how much I shook the jug

and no matter its expiration date which I

paid attention to before making the purchase.

Now that I’m purchasing organic milk, I no

longer have to waste roughly twenty minutes

walking to my nearest convenience store to buy

more milk then returning home.

 

Fast internet speed/proper computer care

• If your internet speed is always slow, your

productivity can dramatically lag – for a fast

connection, please use Spectrum or AT&T.

• If you can make all your computers last

close to ten years or longer, imagine how

many more writings you can finish.

Refrain from eating and drinking anything

at your device which is sticky or likely to

get under one of your keys, protect your

device from direct sunlight and turn it off

if you’re likely to be away from it for at

least an hour, as excessive heat buildup

can shorten the life of your computer.

• Keep your blinds, curtains and shades

closed in the room you keep your computer

in while you’re away from home or while

you’re at home but out of your computer

room while there’s sunlight coming

through the windows there.

• When there is lightning and thunder in

your area, keep both your computer and

your radio turned off to protect these

devices.

 

Having good TV reception

• If you usually have to make too much TV

or antenna adjustment upon turning on

your TV set, you’re losing too much time. If

you use a SOLID SIGNAL antenna for your

your set like me, place it against the nearest

window for optimal reception. My biggest

problem is I don’t always get all the

channels I want. I’ve had this unit since

2015; when it stops working, I plan to buy a

big replacement for it then buy an antenna

that goes on the roof to consistently get

great reception.

• Never let your SOLID SIGNAL antenna

be exposed to direct sunlight. Remove it

from your window once you’re done

watching TV for the day or night.

 

Smarter Yard Work

• The most important thing you can do to

get the most of your lawn care is to spend at

least 400 to 500 bucks on a powerful, self-propelled

lawn mower which will likely last at least a few

years and makes cutting your grass quicker and

less strenuous upon your squeezing the third

handle which shifts your mowing from manual

mode to automatic mode.

• I urge you to mow any grass you can truly mow

rather than spraying it with weed & grass killer

because grass will often come back to life or

stay alive despite your spraying it. If there is any

grass on your lawn you just cannot mow because

it grows against a fence or any part of your home

or is otherwise just too deep to mow in some

areas, spray it as many times as it takes to keep it

out of commission for a while or to kill it altogether.

• Don’t mow any part of your lawn when it’s too

short, muddy or saturated – wait until grass is

about 2 to 3 inches tall before cutting it.

There should be times when you can skip mowing

your back lawn, your side lawn or parts of your

front lawn for about a week or two, easily giving

you at least 20 to 30 minutes of extra time in

your busy lifestyle.

• Besides cutting your portion of the side yard

you share with next-door neighbors, cut theirs

too, as it is irresponsible and doesn’t look good

if you only mow your side. Who knows? If you

do this for them, they may do it for you in

return, and this saved time may be huge for you

on any given day.

• Change the direction you mow your lawns from

week to week; if you mow from north to south

this week, mow east to west next week. This is

necessary to make your lawn grow evenly and to

prevent clumps of dirt from forming, which

makes mowing take longer.

• Always wear noise reduction headphones and

safety glasses while cutting grass. I recommend

buying safety glasses over goggles because the

strap on any goggles you get may come loose at

any point and you may then have too much

trouble fixing this. Before you don your safety

glasses, inspect them for cracks and scratches.

Wipe off any dust sitting on this eye wear.

• Don’t fill up your mower with gasoline indoors,

as this may cause carbon monoxide poisoning.

• Always keep a little bit of lawn mower engine

oil inside your mower and check to see that it’s

lubricated before you begin mowing each day you

cut grass. Putting in too much oil can lead to

smoke and an overheated mower and thus make

it too hard to resume cutting grass before you

can have a qualified technician fix your

appliance. A good way to see if you have the

right amount of oil is to pull out your oil cap stick

and check to make sure this stick only gathers oil

for about an inch starting from the bottom of the

stick.

• Before mowing, apply nonstick cooking spray

all over the circumference underneath your

mower, including the blade, to discourage

grass cuttings from adhering to your appliance;

before I began doing this, I lost as much as 10 to

15 minutes pulling out grass from under my

appliance on each grass cutting day.

• To prevent oil from running out of its

cartridge, particularly if your mower is a Briggs &

Stratton mower, lock your ignition cord by pulling

it toward your handle bar and slipping the top of

your cord underneath your handle bar key

which is shaped like a hook before tilting your

lawn mower to spray it or to remove grass from

it; always keep one hand off the handle bars

while pulling your cord with your other hand

when you want to lock it.

• Take a few moments to pick up any sticks,

pebbles, rocks, papers, bags and wrappers you

see on your grass before mowing over it; this will

save you time in the long run as you help preserve

your mower.

• When snipping off a tree or shrub branch, cut

off as much of it as you can so that it takes many

weeks to grow back. Before doing your trimming,

make sure there are no bees or wasps on what

you’re about to cut. Don’t leave any

wasp-containing structures dangling over your

lawn. If you accidentally knock one down while

mowing the lawn, wait til it’s vacated before

you toss it out of your way to a safe location then

resume mowing; if the wasps return, cut off your

mower and wait for the wasps to go away before

continuing.

• Speaking of shrubs, if you inherit(ed) a

property with poison ivy shrubs/bushes like me

and you’ve reached the point where you have

the thing down to a stub, cover it and any

surrounding weeds with a heavy brick/stone or a

wide, long board or a weed tarp you can buy from

The Home Depot (before going to one of their

stores to buy certain items like weed tarps, check

to see if it’s in stock at the location of your choice

besides viewing the item ratings on their website)

– I have found this to be the best way to kill off

poison ivy for good.

• Never make my mistake of buying an aluminum

shed whose retail cost is about 300 to 400 dollars,

as it will probably break down soon. I recommend

investing in an expensive, quality shed like the

Woodbridge by Arrow shed I recently bought then

buy a Master Lock for your shed once you’re done

having someone help you assemble it – using a

cordless power drill will be of major help. Anchor

down the inside corners of your shed so it can’t be

toppled over or blown away by strong winds.

• If you use a shed instead of a garage, you run

out of gasoline while your mower is close to the

street and you haven’t brought your gas can close

to your front yard from your shed which you

may keep a long distance away in the backyard,

take your mower with you toward the back of

your house so nobody can run off with your

appliance.

 

Reducing your trips to places like The Home

Depot/expediting your store visit

When I go to The Home Depot to buy something

I’ll have to continue using for awhile like weed

killer, I buy four bottles of it so I don’t have to

return to buy more of it too soon. If I have come

to buy multiple items and I’m running out of

time to get out of there in time to catch my bus

and not have to wait an hour for the next one,

I’ll settle for just getting up to half the items I

came for then head to the checkout line.

 

Streamlined Grocery Shopping

• Try going grocery shopping every 2 weeks

instead of weekly. Besides gaining more spare

time overall, it makes sense to do this,

considering that you can often make milk and

produce last two weeks.

• You’ll get out of the store faster by bringing a

well-written grocery list for which you have

ample space between each item, you can

easily read your handwriting and you have

organized your list according to where all the

items in the store are located and in what aisles;

once you finish making the list, double check to

make sure you haven’t omitted any items you

usually buy and those you specifically intend to

get on your next trip.

• As you get close to grocery shopping day,

check your cupboards, shelves and food boxes

to see if there’s anything you need to get now

because you eat it regularly or you may need it

for an upcoming dish. Cross off any items on

your list which you discover you don’t need to

get come shopping day or just before that day.

• Check to make sure you got all the cold items

you need before departing the refrigerated and

frozen foods section; it can be a big hassle to

check your list later in your store visit then

discover you must go all the way back to the

other side of the store to get a cold item you

neglected to get when you were just over there.

• Seek canned goods that come with a pull tab

it often takes a lot of time and effort to open cans

that don’t have a pull tab, no matter how good your

can opener is supposed to be and no matter how

clean you keep it. Spend extra time seeking tabbed

cans once your chances for catching the bus

that’s due to arrive soon diminish.

• Before buying meats such as steaks and ribs,

make sure they have lots of white marble – the

more marble they contain, the less tough they

will be to cut up and eat.

• If you find it tough to open a clear produce

bag attached to other bags on a roll in the

grocery store, pull the front part of the bag to

the baseline of your hand then rub the bag in a

circular motion with your other hand – the

closer to the center of your palm that you rub

the bag, the better.

Split up your grocery store runs if you ride the

bus and go to more than two grocers. Every two

weeks, I go to Schnucks (where I buy many items)

late in the week then within the next two days, I

go to Dierberg’s to buy a few items then make a

7-minute walk to Goeke’s to buy many fruits and

vegetables or vice versa; when I did all my

grocery shopping at Dierberg’s and Goeke’s, I

usually either missed my bus going home then

waited an hour for the next bus or I had to catch

my bus, go home then soon leave back out to go to

the store I bypassed, only to have to wait about an

hour to ride home upon returning to the area. The

buses that run on the number 61 route near the

Schnucks location closest to me run 15 to 20

minutes apart during certain weeks or months, 35

to 40 minutes apart during other periods of time.

Check off all items you buy on the first leg of your

multiple day grocer run once you get home and

have put everything away.

• If you like to choose paper bags for your

groceries at the checkout line, ask the cashier

or grocery bagger to double bag your groceries

immediately at the beginning of your checkout

and pay attention to make sure your items

aren’t being put into plastic bags. Double-paper

bags are less likely to break than single-paper bags.

• Have your cash or credit card/debit card in your

hand while your items are rung up.

• Before removing your paper bags from

your cart upon exiting the store, grab them

by their sides or their bottoms rather than their

tops.

• Grab all your bags at once without

consolidating them if the expected arrival of

your bus is very imminent.

• Because I’m doing all this stuff for my trips,

I’m putting myself in a situation where I’ll

rarely miss my bus after having bought

food.

 

How to open cans and jars

• To open cans which have a pull tab, pull the tab

back fast then pull it up hard to reduce the likelihood

of the tab breaking off.

• When encountering tough-to-open jars, use a bottle

opener to pry open their lids.

• To open cans of refrigerated biscuit dough,

follow the directions on the can and simply

peel the outer label of the can along the arrow

until the lid automatically pops up; you don’t

have to waste time using a can opener for this

like I initially did.

 

Reduced cooking time

• Consider cooking two days a week then

having leftovers throughout the week. I cook

Fridays and Saturdays then have leftovers

from Friday’s meal on Sunday and Tuesday,

eat leftovers from Saturday’s meal on Monday

and Wednesday then generally microwave or

bake a quick meal on Thursdays – this makes

things so much easier on me, as I work outside

my home full time.

• I endorse the Oster food chopping machine for

chopping up veggies into small pieces.

• I recommend buying green or purple cabbage

regularly because it’s very nutritious, it’s likely to

last you a few weeks each time you buy it and you

can rapidly prepare it for cooking by tearing off

large chunks from your cabbage head.

 

Giving your dog a haircut every three weeks during

hot weather/retaining your grip

• Cutting my dog’s hair every 3 Saturdays during the

warm months provides a fine balance between

giving him too few hair cuts and cutting his hair

too often.

• To prevent your dog from giving you the slip as

you take him/her for a walk, use a tight leash whose

grip your companion won’t be able to wiggle out of.

 

Reducing the amount of flies in your home

• If you’re constantly going after flies in your home,

you won’t be able to do much pertaining to your

writings. You can pour bleach and hot water down

your sewer drain plus fight flies with a fly

swatter, bug spray and your bare hands but you can

foil them more effectively with the prevention

measures covered below.

• Look for where flies are coming from and

tape up cracks and gaps on your windows

and storm doors plus holes in your basement walls

and ceiling through which flies can enter your home

with Gorilla tape you can get from The Home Depot.

Ever since I taped up the gaps between the panes on

my basement windows many weeks ago, I have

stopped houseflies, which must be the most annoying

flies in existence, from invading my home.

• If flies are raiding your fridge

and the coldness inside it isn’t killing them, seal up

all produce and any other items you have in there.

If you cut off these pests’ food supply, they’ll surely

perish from food deprivation and stress overload

and thus be unable to keep reproducing.

• If a mosquito enters your home but it gets

away as you try to kill it, apply insect

repellent which repels mosquitos all over

your neck, your arms, your legs, your feet and

behind your ears. Spray your pets well.

• You can pour fruit-flavored vinegar and dish

detergent into a cup then wrap the top of the

cup with Saran Wrap then put a rubber band

around the cup but this method is likely to

only catch about 2 dozen flies at the most and

it isn’t likely to last that long. A better, more

permanent solution is to use Zevo spray over

the Raid fly spray; always push the nozzle

down rather than squeezing it.

• Another effective way to get rid of flies in

your home is to hang up Raid fly trap sticks.

 

Because I have taken all these steps, I have more

time to devote to my book writing. To get more of

my tips for authors, click here

Want to know why you need an author website if you write books? You need it to have one of the most potent book marketing tools at your disposal – something you may have a hard time advancing as an author without.

It can help your brand and your books attract traffic from the search engines. If you have a website that is written well, organized, easy to read, easy to navigate and gives enough detail about yourself and perhaps your books, this in itself gives search engines the opportunity and a legitimate reason to list you in their rankings. Make sure to create strong keywords pertinent to your site – I recommend using Word Press for your site creation.

It holds everything in one spot for you. You can put the images and titles of all your books plus the links to them on one page. Peruse my published books page to see how you can do this well.

It makes it so easy to pull in readers from multiple angles. Link to your site through your social media posts addressed to your friends and relatives. Link to it through social media groups geared toward authors. Link to it through any online professional profiles you create. Link to it on book promotion sites. Link to it in emails to friends each time you publish a new book.

It enables you to create a personal connection with readers. List your email address. Link to all your social media account pages. Taking these steps helps readers follow you and ask questions they may have.

Finally, it makes it easy to run a reader newsletter subscription list which is the most powerful way to connect to customers – they read their email every day, more than they log into their social media accounts and pay attention to online ads. Hook readers into giving you their email address and signing up by offering a free content magnet that may be hard to resist such as a free book or a free chapter from one of the books you have written. Issue newsletter communication for each book you release and each time you welcome a new subscriber; the key is to touch base enough without being a pest.

These are all the reasons you need your own site.

There are many things you must do well to sell your books. Here are eight important components of hooking readers into buying your books.

Write quality content. Your content has to be free of typos and grammatical errors. Also, it must be well-structured and pleasant to read.

Ensure clarity. Make sure readers will understand what’s happening throughout your book. A great way to do this is to have a smooth transition between every scene, particularly if you’re writing a fiction story.

Proofread. After you finish writing the book, carefully read over everything you wrote or have someone else do it. When I proofread my works, I painstakingly look for errors, make sure I understand what I just read in each paragraph, make sure no paragraph is too long and make sure all paragraphs are double-spaced.

Edit. Correct each error you or someone else finds during the proofreading stage.

Have a good book cover. Your cover must look attractive. If you’re self-publishing your book and want to handle the cover yourself, please use Pixabay – they provide quality images you may use for personal or commercial use.

Write powerful blurb for fiction books. You can write well plus have a solid title and cover for your fiction book but it likely won’t do you any good unless you write a powerful blurb that is sure to prevent readers from bolting to the next book on sale. Strive to have at least four to five short but powerful paragraphs that are likely to build up enough intrigue; pay attention to the back covers of traditionally published books.

Keep in mind the probability of a preview for your book. Amazon provides a “look inside the book” preview feature for all books. If I see the book is full of long, single-spaced paragraphs or I become confused about what’s happening in the book while reading the preview, I won’t buy the book.

Promote your books rather than letting the market take care of everything for you. If you don’t promote or market, people can’t find your works.

You have learned key things to do as an author. Adhere to this advice to sell more books. To learn a lot more about having author success, click here.

 

 

Writing books is a lot of work. You put a lot of time and effort into it.

You would surely hate it if nobody ever bought your book. Writing a book is hard enough; you don’t need the frustration and the feeling you wasted your time added on. So, I have written this post to help you make sure potential buyers can find your book.

I have news for you; some people make the mistake of posting the image and title of their book on social media but not making it possible to actually find the book and buy it. It irritates me to click on the book image then not being able to find the book and preview it before perhaps buying it.

You may only get one chance to leave a lasting impression with each potential reader. Every time you post the title, image and description of your book, be sure to hyperlink the purchase link for your book into the promotion page.

Finally, promote your books through social media, Facebook writers groups, book promotion websites, your own author website and more. Not promoting your books makes it too hard for people to find them.

As they say, patience is a virtue. This is especially true for you as an author.

You’re likely to go through ups and downs on your book sales. There may be times when you make multiple sales in a month then go many months without selling one book.

The more books you write and the more you learn how to be a successful author, the more rewarding your writing career should be. The key is to hang in there.

Putting in time, even a few minutes, to spend writing your book during your first computer session for the day can be critical. The earlier in the day or evening you write, the more opportunity and will you have to complete a significant portion of your book.

If you wait until it’s almost time to go to bed to work on your project, you may not do any writing for the day at all. The earlier you add words to your book, the better.

I’m devoting the entirety of this post to deciding whether to write a fiction book you have on your mind for an important reason – it’s easier to make sales and generate sales for a nonfiction book consistently than it is for a fiction book. This is especially true if the nonfiction book is a self-help book or another book which is likely to appeal to a lot of people in your niche market, people who are likely to buy your book now.

Getting enough people to buy a fiction book you write is a different animal. Before you commence writing it, take these critical measures to help ensure you don’t waste your time writing, proofreading, editing, publishing and marketing it:

1) Spend at least a few minutes at your computer pondering whether you can truly make the book into a piece of work that someone other than perhaps a dedicated family member of yours will buy.

2) If you determine it’s worth it to pursue the project, spend considerable time coming up with a strong title for the book and think about how you can begin the book with an action scene likely to hook people into buying your story.

3) Devise a solid book description you can put into your “About the book” page and the blurb section of Amazon or anywhere else you choose to self-publish your work or submit it to a literary agent or publishing house for consideration.

As authors, we can only go so far without the aid of those we create our books for which is you, our precious readers. We can promote our books on social media sites and to book promotion sites and maybe even pick up some sales from it but without active promotional help from you the customer, it does us limited good.

When you buy our books then read them, you can help us go a long way by writing a brief but helpful review and sharing the links to our works to your friends and on your social media accounts. Thank you.