Blog Archives
It all about carving out time…
Tonight I testing out live streaming to YouTube instead of recording, editing, compiling, and uploading an episode. I went from taking 2 hours to do my 15 minute video, to 20 minutes and it was already live on YouTube.
There are still many things to figure out and while my audience is still small, there’s time to figure it all out. I need to find out how to add looping bed music. How to add an intro/outro. Title cards. Perhaps even a caption. Lots of things to figure out.
But guess what…
I now have time to do that. Normally when the file would be compiling, I’d be working on the title card for the video. Then I’d come over here and work on the blog post. I’d upload the video to YouTube and now I’m uploading to IGTV. All of these eat into time I could be spending doing something else.
Like writing.
I had, honestly, thought about not doing the videos any longer. It was a brutal internal struggle. I’m torn. I want to keep doing the videos, but they were eating into my writing time. The videos are helping me grow my audience, so I didn’t want to stop making them. I feel there is value there.
Live streaming may solve all those issues. I’m even more excited now, knowing that I can keep making the videos, and have more time for writing. That’s my main goal is to be an author, not a YouTuber. One must be primary and not eat up all my time.
Also, it’ll free up a little bit of time for me to do TikTok videos as well. I want to expand into that platform. Got to keep the content flowing to grow a following.
As I say over and over again, mostly to reinforce this in myself, I’m on a journey of learning. The more I learn about what I’m doing, the more fun I’m having doing what I’m doing. I’m so happy you’re on this journey with me.
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/5-a-Day-With-Jay—0136-e10thb9
To Promote or not to promote…
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
7 days out.
One week. How fast we got here. Next Wednesday is May 5th. The day I start dropping content like crazy. It’s something I’ve wanted to do and talked about doing for a very long time. In the video, I do some reflection on this point.
Yes, over the years of me publishing books, I’ve made many mistakes along the way. One of the biggest mistakes was stopping and starting and starting over again trying to reboot something that never got off the ground in the first place.
The other major mistake I made was throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck without giving anything a chance to find an audience.
I accept that I did this and I’m moving past those failures. There’s nothing I can do about the bad books I put out or the poor editing I did in those books. What I can do is clean up what I did, and let them be. That’s what I’ve done and it’s time to move forward.
For the most part, the next 2 months of content is already scheduled. I’ve one more upload to do and I need to order print copies so I can verify the print proof. Other than that, we’re on auto-pilot.
In the past, many authors would have a lot of fanfare for what they were doing. Book trailers. All day events and giveaways. Video chats. You know the like.
I’m not doing that. I’m not ready to start shouting to the heavens that it’s all there. I’m doing this, no quietly, but I’m also not shouting from the rooftops. I’ll post across all my social media accounts. That I’ll do. But I’m not going to try and generate a fuss about what I’m doing.
I’m a small fish in a big pond and the best thing I can do is drop book, after book, after book. Let others make the noise for me. Again, I’ll promote to my current platform, but I’m going to do a slow burn. As we get closer to the first 12 books in this major arc out there, then I’ll start to make some noise. Why? Cuz we’ll be getting the something major happening and I’ll have a lot of books for people to buy and read. That’s when it’ll get interesting.
What does that mean? It means I’m ready for many months of slow sales and little movement. I’m prepared for that. Mentally. Before when I launched books, I wanted to ride in a limo lighting cigars with $100 bills. Yes, I’d bought into the myth. I’ve matured since there and I’ve got my head back on the ground and out of the clouds.
Not only have I seen what my mistakes have wrought, I’ve also watched my friends succeed and how they succeeded. What they did to get to the level they’re at. It’s time for me to be consistent and push forward. It’s going to be a tough couple of years getting the ball rolling. I may slip a time of two, but as long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other, I’ll make it up that hill.
I’ve said this before and I’ll continue to say it, thank you for coming along on this ride with me. It’s going to be exciting!
Until Next Time!
Stay Awesome!
Audio Only: https://anchor.fm/jr-murdock/episodes/5-a-Day-With-Jay—0126-evv8kj
Promoted and promotion.
It’s been a long time since i blogged regularly and as I said yesterday, much news has built up. So, this is another post getting you all caught up with life events that have happened. Yes, I know I’ve been quiet and i will be rectifying that by getting back to regular blogging.
The next great piece of news I have for you: Promoted.
Before I was surplussed at work (That was nearly 3 years ago) I was in an organization that had little to no movement. Everyone was frozen and locked into their position. No one moved up or out of the org. Things were that tight. For about 12 years I was in that group and it’s been about 15 years since my last actual promotion.
Two team Leads left our group recently (one left the company, one got promoted). i inquired each time, and after some negotiation, I was moved up to Team Lead.
This promotion doesn’t come without a lot of effort on my part. I had taken leadership mentoring, I’d mentored with other leaders (Both Technical Directors and team leads). I took leadership training courses. Participated in leadership forums. I spent the last three years working with my Technical Director so he knew my motivations and goals.
Am I excited? Oh heck yeah! This is my first promotion in about 15 years. I’ve finally moved from worker bee to the first rung of leadership. There are still many years in my career left and hopefully this first step into leadership will be one of many.
Back to yesterday’s news, yes, the book bundle is still going on. Just a reminder here. I’ll talk more about it and the others in the bundle in the coming days. So much more news to talk about. It’s an awesome time right now.
If you have any questions about the bundle, please let me know. Thank you for all your support. It means the world to me.
Until next Time!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 