3 Tricks to Destress (and Non-Coincidental Release Date Changes)

 

This week at the SFF Seven we're talking destressing. We're asking, "What's one thing you do to keep (or reestablish) your equanimity when life is too much?"

That's always the question, isn't it?

It's especially pertinent for me today because I've been stressing about whether I can get GREY MAGIC, book #3 in Bonds of Magic, written in time for release. See, I've known for a while that I wouldn't make my original release date of December 20. Yes, the December 20 that's nineteen days from this post. I made a deliberate choice there when Agent Sarah asked me to write more on a book she really wanted to take on submission this fall. "I'll just postpone the release date," I thought to myself. Then, yesterday, I was deciding what I should push the date to, as Amazon requires that we change the date at least five days ahead. Yes, that still gives me two weeks, but I wanted to get a feel for that - and if it means I also have to push the release of THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING. (Reader: I do. Apologies! These things have a cascade effect...) 

So, I was picking my ideal, least-amount-of-stress date when I realized: Amazon only allows us to push the date by 30 days. For those not wanting to do the math, that made the new release date January 19. At first I tried manipulating my schedule and wordcount goals, considering writing on weekends, which I normally take off to relax and refill the well, and then I realized that I would be incredibly stressed trying to do that. I ended up soliciting advice. My plan is to call Amazon and see if they'll grant me dispensation to push both release dates out to a comfortable distance. Apparently they sometimes will, and I stand a good chance as I haven't done this before. Wish me luck! And I'll report back. 

Fair warning: those dates I'll be requesting are mid-February and mid-April, just to give myself plenty of room since I don't want to have to try to change them again. 

Onward to the actual topic!

Stress isn't easy to combat, especially since it can be so insidious. Our neurological systems are built to constantly re-establish baselines, so we can be alerted to new dangers. This means we become inured to the presence of chronic stressors, in order to be aware of acute ones. In essence, we forget about the alligators in the watering hole that are always there, so we can be alert to the arrival of the tiger.

But only our conscious awareness "forgets" about the alligators. Our adrenal system is revved about those stinking alligators, punching up our nervous system every time we take a drink. For modern humans, our alligators are those constant concerns of our lives: money, health, family, deadlines, politics, etc. We think we're not stressed about these things all the time because we're used to it. Often it's only when the stress relents that we become aware of its absence - with sheer, blessed relief.

For me this means being proactive. I make an effort to combat stress even when I don't feel particularly stressed. What do I do?

1) Take deep breaths. I know this may feel like hackneyed advice, but really is the best. Studies have shown we hold our breath when reading emails or when social media notifications arrive. By reminding myself to consciously and conscientiously breathe deeply, I release and fend off stress.

2) Speaking of email and social media notifications, I silence as much as possible. All those pop-ups, pings, and badges? Turn them off! Very little needs our immediate attention. For email, I try to confine my engagement with it to once a day. Much like the paper mail. I treat it like it arrives once and I read and respond then. 

3) I try to be kind to myself, doing those things that others have mentioned here. Yoga is great, not only for the energy realignment and breathing (!), but also because it makes me step away from the phone and computer for an hour and be only in my body. Being outside works for this. Long walks. Reading in the sun. Unplugging and focusing on non-monetized creative tasks.

What do you all do to destress?

Rejuvenation and Goal-Setting

The pattern of frost-filigreed wisteria vines is so lovely. The winter holidays are such a great season for rest and rejuvenation - and our weather in the high desert of New Mexico has obliged with lots of snow and freezing temperatures. All the better to keep me cozied indoors and focusing on both relaxing and giving my mind the room to mull thoughts for the coming year.

I did something a little different this year. Not on purpose, but because in those last few days before guests arrived for the holidays, I just couldn't keep my attention on work.

Instead of fighting that - I let it go.

I spent those couple of days baking, wrapping gifts - and even tandem watching schlocky Christmas movies with a long-distance friend. The upshot is I went into the actual holidays feeling rested and calm, instead of stressed. I'm going to do this every year.

In fact, front-loading rejuvenation time rather than relying on post-effort recovery time is going to be my compass concept for 2019.

The other thing that's happened is that I relaxed and rested enough that I started to get a little bored - which meant I was excited to take on some business tasks, yay! - and my mind wandered quite a bit, of its own accord, to ideas for the coming year. A big part of that is going to be reducing back log and lists.

Some of those things:

Maintain Inbox Zero

Some people can live with full email inboxes. I just can't. I tend to treat my inbox like a To Do list, which means the emails in there weigh on me as tasks that remain unfinished. Worse, emails that are more important, and thus require more effort, tend to languish in there for months, growing hopelessly stale or often forgotten entirely.

To change this up:

• I already emptied all of my email inboxes and will start the new year with Inbox Zero
• I will treat email with the one-touch principle - each email gets touched once and dealt with
• to do this I will either reply immediately or
• file emails and add any reply tasks to my To Do List instead
• I'll also continue to check email only a couple of times each day, and then only after I get wordcount

Revivify To Do List

Related to the above, I'm going to make my running To Do List, which I keep on an Excel spreadsheet, more relevant and active. I have that same syndrome where some tasks tend to linger on it for MUCH too long, sliding from one day to the next, until they build up so much inertia from Dread & Procrastination that they feel like insurmountable obstacles.

To change this up:

• I will minimize tasks that float for a long time by
• distributing tasks instead of clumping (i.e., if I have a list of things to do for SFWA, I'll put them over several days or weeks instead of all on one day, then moving them as I don't finish them.
• And if I do move a task, I'll break it up into smaller tasks, then distribute over several days
• I'll give larger, longterm tasks a category (I already have these, like Finances, Business, Errands, etc.) and subtasks until complete
• Everything gets this treatment, rather than having very large tasks on my list that float with no progress

Reduce TBR List

Back in 2015, I made a spreadsheet (of course I did!) of all the books in my possession that I hadn't yet read. It lists the format (digital or paper), date acquired, reason to read, etc. I add to it as I acquire new books. All the books that I had at the time I made the spreadsheet got a date of October 27-29, 2015, which were the dates I entered them. When I made the list, I had something like 280 books on it. Today I have 316 and 233 of those are from October of 2015. (To be fair, those represent YEARS, possibly DECADES of unread residency in my life.) This list can feel like a crushing unfinished task, however, so I'm resolved to deal with this backlog.

To change this up:

• I will read one of these 233 books for every newer book I read, alternating them.
• I'm reducing my 25% commitment (reading at least the first 25% of every book) to 10%. If I'm not wanting to continue by then, off it goes.
• In fact, I'm going to get ruthless about this decision-making. If the book isn't making me glow with delight and LONG to keep going, then it goes. 

I've got a few other goal sets on my list - on a spreadsheet, OF COURSE! - but they feel more personal. What about you all - anything you're looking to change up this year?

All I Do Not Know

The cat is back. Her feeding tube is out and she's recovering really, really well. My heart, however, is now in for some serious stress testing, apparently.

Aaaand, had you been subbed into my newsletter, you'd know all of this already because I just sent out a newsletter (the third in like three years) this past week. This is to say that when it comes to email lists and newsletters, I'm a learner, not a master. My email list is tiny. As in double digits tiny.

Finding how to subscribe to my email list is probably more difficult than it should be. KAK's excellent write up made that plain to me. Also plain to me is that getting my sign up put up as easily as Marshall did his? Yeah. It's not a thing. I have no way to grab my sign up box and put it where I want it. I have to send you to the Contact page on my website. Not sure why mine is coded that way. Dumb. But there you go. I will be asking my web mistress, I assure you.

My main issue with the whole newsletter/email list thing is that I have no earthly clue what to say. Ever. So my newsletter subscribers are mostly people who already know me from other endeavors - the international cat fancier's list I belong to, for example. So yes. My cats star in my newsletters. Kinda like they do everything else. As a result, I haven't ever really pushed for email sign ups.

The other issue is that I am scattered across a wide array of genres. SFR. UF. Fantasy. Paranormal Romance. In no case have any of my series been completed past two books. Usually, in a push for email sign ups, an author has something to offer - a free book, short, novella, something. And I do. But it is the sole example of sword and sorcery that I've written. So it's an odd lead-in to the rest of my list, right?

Sigh.

I think if we want to be really straight here, this is me. Drowning in all I do not know.

Email Lists & Selling That Book You Wrote: 5 Tips

Give me your email address! All the email addresses! One address. Two address. Three address!

Yeah, I know sometimes it feels like you can't go anywhere on the web without someone demanding your email address, and you don't want to be one of those people. Yet, you kind of, sort of, awfully badly want to be one of those people whose books sell.

Here's the thing, second only to writing the next book, email lists are the best marketing tool. To make it sound less sales-oriented and more about connecting with the reader, the authorverse often refers to email lists as newsletter subscribers. In the world of marketing, there is a difference, but for the sake of this post, I'll use the terms interchangeably.

If you're feeling skeevy about email lists think of them this way: these are people who want you to tell them when you have a new book out. They want to buy your book. Why wouldn't you tell them?

SPAM. 

As in, you don't want to be spammy. You hate being spammed by overenthusiastic authors who somehow got your email address and now they're like your crazy aunt who won't stop emailing you.

There are scads of How To Build Your Newsletter Subscribers classes out there, and too many of them advocate mailing campaigns that are better suited for retailers than authors. There absolutely is such a monster as Too Much Communication, especially when there is no value-add for the customer. Want to know how to tell when a Big Retailer has someone on-the-ball in heir marketing department? Their newsletter settings allow the customer to define how often the company contacts them: Daily. Weekly. Monthly. Quarterly. Only When There's Big News. Do I think you need to have that setting? No.

You're an author not a retailer.  

Anything you do that takes away from writing the next book, better have a high Return On Investment (ROI). That is why I am a proponent of less is more. I believe strongly in the unspoken agreement between reader and author. One part of that agreement is the author will never abuse information given to them by a reader. This includes their email address.

How often you should send a newsletter and the content of your newsletters are different posts for different days, but the short version is: send when you have a new book to sell. If you are a writer who drops a new book every month, then you have a reason to send a monthly newsletter. Same thing for quarterly. If you're releasing serialized works in addition to novels, those two lists should be separate.

5 Things To Do To Build Your Email List

• Make it easy for people to subscribe. Put a link to your subscription page in the back matter of your ebooks. Put the subscribe box on the main page of your website. 
• Note: Popovers (those windows that appear over the web page) do generate a lot of subscribers but they also turn away a lot of potential readers. The jury is split on their effectiveness. It's the latest way to combat "sidebar-blindness" in which the visitor ignores whatever is in the sidebar/header/footer, etc.
• Cross-promote in author newsletters that are in the same genre as your book
• Note: That promotion should go to a landing page that should include your subscription widget. Same applies to landing pages from ad campaigns: they should always include the option to subscribe to your newsletter.
• Offer a free short story exclusive to subscribers
• Note: Some authors offer other freebies with a "chance to win" to "new subscribers only." Some offer offline-tangible things (like swag). Do what's right for you. Keep in mind, you're an author, the product you're selling is your stories, so no need to go overboard with prizes. Don't make it complicated. 
• Remind your social media followers to subscribe. Remind them there are things in the newsletter they won't see in 140 characters and a gif. 
• Note: Be selective about when you do it, say a week before you drop a newsletter. Don't do it daily or weekly, it becomes noise that's easy to ignore.
• Plug it. Pin it. Embed it. Everywhere your author bio appears should also include a reminder to subscribe. If it's digital, then include the link to the subscription page. Twitter and Facebook had "pinned" posts option, rotate in a subscription promo when you're in the lull after new release promo. Offline, verbally encourage subscriptions. Remind readers of the benefits. 

Remember it's quality over quantity. Valuable subscribers are the ones who actually open your emails, then go buy your books. Brace yourself. Open Rates are a small fraction of your total list. Click Thru Rates (CTR) are a fraction of the Open Rates. Buy Rates are an even smaller fraction of CTR.  

Never, ever, ever sign people up for your newsletter without their consent. 

In some states, that is how you run afoul of anti-spam laws. 

Keep your efforts focused on your primary goal: Sell Your Books.