Marketing is freaking exhausting

 

I just released a book last Friday. If you haven’t heard, then you’ve either been living under a rock or all my marketing efforts were a waste. Either way, I’m exhausted. Was it worth it? Let’s see…

Writers and aspiring authors everywhere: Please be advised that writing is the easy part. Marketing, spreading the word about your wonderful books, finding readers, is the hard part.

Really hard. Suck-all-your-energy-away-until-you-are-rocking-in-a-corner hard part and have no energy left to write.

I love interacting with readers. I enjoy social networking. I enjoy blogging, tweeting and posting to Google+ and Facebook. I do these things on a regular basis to make connections, interact and build relationships with readers and fellow writers.

While working on the release of Choosing to Dream, I pushed my marketing into high gear on all my social networks, hopefully enough to get the word out and not too much that I started to annoy people. Crosses fingers.

I also ran an ad on Facebook while putting my first book in the series, Sweet Dreams, on sale for $0.99 for the four days before my release of the sequel.

In addition to the above, I submitted my book to a few bloggers for review, which haven’t come back yet, created and promoted a book trailer, and submitted the sale of Sweet Dreams to a few sale sites that offer free ads.

Next, I organized my own blog tour. I have a beautiful group of writing friends who agreed to host a guest post, excerpt, or interview on their blogs, hopefully extending my reach to their followers.

Lastly, I had a seven-hour release day bash on Facebook, hosted by PageCurl Publishing and Promotion. It was awesome. We had thirteen hosts, including me, each with a thirty-minute slot. Great interaction from readers, a ton of giveaways, and great authors, all made the event a success, not to mention the tireless work of my PA, Melody. By the end of the event, my eyes were read, sore, watering, and I could barely keep them open, I was so exhausted.

The results: Great exposure for my new release, new subscribers to my mailing list, new followers on social media, and new romance lovers reading my books, not to mention a huge bump in my ranking on Amazon. I couldn’t have done any of it without my awesome team at PageCurl Publishing andPromotion. But I am exhausted. My friend ran a 3 day marathon, I just feel like I did. It was worth it and I will do it all again for the next big release, but between then and now, I will be taking a little break. Oh, I’ll still be blogging and posting on social, but I will be cutting way back on my marketing efforts. I should probably continue full steam ahead, but honestly, I need a break. I want to start writing again. I haven’t written anything new in quite some time. Time to write.

Oh, and if you’d like to read my books and newest release, you can find them here.

Because the marketing doesn’t ever really end.

Jennifer Senhaji was born and raised in San Francisco, CA, and is married with two children. If she’s not singing along at the top of her lungs to whatever is playing on the radio, you can find her making music playlists at home on her laptop. She works full time and splits her spare time between family, reading, blogging, and writing. Other than English, Jennifer speaks Spanish, Moroccan, and a little French. She loves to travel, but doesn’t do enough of it and will weave places she has gone or wants to go into her stories. Reading has been a passion for most of her life and she loves to write. She calls herself Your Sweet and Spicy Romance Author because she loves the sweet nuances of new love, but also is a bit of a voyeur and wants to be in the bedroom when the characters finally come together. You can find Jennifer and all her book links and social media links on her website at www.jennifersenhajiauthor.com