Day 922 - Marketing as busy-work and procrastination

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Today I had a ton of marketing stuff to do because my book is releasing on Wednesday. I got a fast response from Amazon (go KDP!) about why my paperback book was having that error message—apparently the title in the ISBN listing on Bowker’s was different from what I’d typed as the title in KDP. The problem was the apostrophe—my browser automatically changes the apostrophe to a smart apostrophe, but it’s a plain apostrophe in Bowker’s. So I just changed the apostrophe in KDP to a plain apostrophe and it worked fine.

I had intended to do my writing first today, but I wanted to get all my marketing tasks out of the way early, especially because I had to send an email as early as possible today for my Street Team. This is all because I’m so last-minute with everything for this book launch, since I was pushing to release books 4 and 5 this year, within 1 month of each other. Next time I’m just going to release after the book is done, no matter how long it might take me to write it.

It’s probably just as well that I had marketing tasks to do first today, because I had some IBS discomfort this morning and I probably wouldn’t have been able to write anyway. Or if I had tried to write, I’d have been really distracted by the discomfort. When I can’t concentrate, my writing speed tends to go down.

This morning, I think I used marketing tasks to procrastinate. They’re important tasks that eventually need to be done, but they’re not really that urgent. And because I was feeling a bit of physical discomfort, I found myself procrastinating on the writing and doing marketing because that was easier to do, but I was still being “busy” so I felt like I was getting work done. I suppose I sort of was getting work done, but I wasn't getting done the work that needs the highest priority, which is my writing.

The book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport mentions that we will often do non urgent work to feel like we’re accomplishing something when instead we really need to focus and do deep work to get done the most important projects. I have a feeling that’s what I did with the marketing because I was still feeling a bit of pain and nausea every so often. It made me feel like it wasn't bad enough that I needed to take medicine, but what I really should have done is just take my medicine so that I could get work done.

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I do such a terrible job at getting back to work after lunch! I wasted time and got distracted with retail procrastination (because who doesn’t love free books?). Aargh!

Okay, I’m ready to get to work and I’m feeling better now, although there isn’t as much time left in the day today. However, I’ll try to at least get that scene finished today and maybe get started on the next one.

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I did indeed finish the scene, although my writing speed was below 1000 words per hour. However, that involved some rearranging of dialogue when I discovered that my blocking notes flowed a bit disjointedly, so I expected that. I’m also glad I fixed the problem, which would have been a lot more difficult if I’d dictated the scene and then had to fix everything in edits. It was considerably easier doing it now, while in the midst of writing the dialogue.

Writing streak: 401 days

My takeaway for today: I need to be careful about using marketing tasks to procrastinate! Busy-work is not getting stuff done!

My second takeaway for today: Even if the IBS isn’t bad, if it’s distracting me from writing, just take your medicine so you can get work done! Otherwise you’ll procrastinate!

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