Content is King

This is the key law to obey as a self-publisher. Everyone’s heard the advice. Writers write. But it goes farther than that. Sure, entrepreneurs need to balance their workload between creative and business tasks.

You need to be smart about how you do it.

Essentially, if you’re not creating new content then your time is being sucked into a black hole. I’m not saying working on promotions or tweeting or whatever is a waste of time, but the long-term returns for such actions are small. If you are truly in this for the long haul then you need to understand: content is king.

Should you spend your time on Facebook or write? Write. Should you look into new twitter programs or write? Well, if you’re talking looking for a way to be more efficient at twitter, then go ahead and do that. Try to look at these projects as one-time costs (even though you may need to review them every year or so). The important thing is that you don’t want your daily routine to get bogged down with management tasks.

How about blogging? This is interesting, because it is another form of content. I started putting bonus features of my book online as blog posts. To me, this is a good use of my time. It’s not as good as writing books, but it’s better than spending time on GoodReads and Google+. I’m creating permanent content that enriches my readers. I am forever widening the scope of my worlds with these projects.

Even blog posts that are instructional and don’t support your fiction directly are useful. An insightful article can be relevant for years and draw readers. But keep that in mind: if you want to spend significant time on the post, it should be something that can act as a draw. Otherwise, for updates and small things, go ahead and blog but keep it quick.

Writing a short story and posting it for free can do a lot more to advance your career than spending that time in forums. I’m not saying you should be antisocial, but understand the difference between adding value to your empire and spinning your wheels.

Believe me – it’s not easy. I’m not one of those authors that can put out a book every 2 months. It’s hard to put that much content together. Sometimes I don’t feel like writing. Sometimes I’m too stressed out. But falling back to social media is a trap.

Content is king.