First off, let me say, I’m tired. Like really tired.

The Mrs went on a week-long trip to Florida to visit family with her sister. All went well until their return trip. There was a major storm sweeping across the country. Their flight out of Orlando was delayed, but they got to Charlotte where all flights were cancelled. They had to get a room for the night, which, thankfully, they did. They were up early the next morning and back home.

Needless to say, I was also up late and up early. Had to do the day job until their plane landed. After work, took a short nap and my brain is goo. You can probably tell in today’s video.

Moving on.

One of the things I’m thinking a lot about lately is promotion. Yes, I need to be better at marketing myself. I’m not good at that. I’ve not studied what I need to do on that end. I’ve got books to read, yes. I need to get to those. Let’s not put the cart before the horse.

I do plan on doing marketing. Later. Right now, I’m concerned with planning and scheduling as well as writing that next book. It does me no good to market if I’ve got nothing to market beyond myself. This is why I’m slowly building my platform. I want those who follow me to see and understand that I’m putting in the hours. I’m doing what it takes to get that next book out.

Also, I want potential readers to show up here, and see “Hey, this guy is busy!” That’s not going to happen over night. Every “overnight success” put in the time. Paid their dues. Struggled to get ahead. I’ve read enough autobiographies to know that famous comes LONG before rich. That’s if rich ever happens.

My expectations have been set and lowered down to reality. I won’t be burning money trying to promote myself until I’m much deeper into the series than I am. I’m planning a 16 book arc across 4 different series. There’s a LOT of work that needs to happen. I’m only 4 books in. A quarter of the way. Once I get to the half-way mark, then I think it’ll be time to start doing more on the promotion side of things.

This isn’t a race. It’s a marathon. I don’t want to spin up a marketing engine, only to have it stall out. I’ll get books out there. I’ll try to catch people’s attention. Quietly sneak up on readers and BAM! Look! Books! WOO!

I kid. Though I have had several people rediscover me recently, and that feels great. Soon enough, we’ll get onto bigger and better things with regards to getting the word out. That is, if the sands don’t shift too drastically. I mention in the video about how some sites and devices may stop collecting user data for targeted marketing. That’s a danger for a small author who depends on those targeted ads to attract new readers. I understand privacy and all that. I do. I just know that the world is about to take a major shift. We’ll see where it ends up.

I’m off to get some rest.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!

Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/5-a-Day-With-Jay—0130-e10bbtr