For those of you who don’t know me, and may be new here, I run a book account on Instagram catered to all things romance books. First and foremost, I’m a reader. Without finding my passion for books, I never would have found my other passion; writing them.
Here’s the thing though, it’s overwhelming. Going from a blogger who dedicated her time to reading and posting various images; to now navigating a balance with writing, posting on social media, and creating content as an author as well. It hasn’t been terrible though, I’m not complaining about having to be a busy bee. I work in social media full-time aside from blogging and writing, so I know how to manage my time and attempt to plan out my posts for all the different platforms. I may be saying that, but there are definite times of feeling buried in work. I’m the person who will add more and more to my plate and then become a ball of stress when trying to figure out when to do it all.
And if you haven’t noticed, I’m not the greatest with deadlines. From stating on my Instagram that I'll post reviews and recommendations all the time, to it being sporadic. This follows behind with my writing too. I don’t set deadlines, and will have a general idea in my head of what I want to follow. With having so much on my plate, I tend to keep my deadlines to myself, just so I don’t disappoint anyone if it falls through. That’s why I waited until only a few weeks before to announce the release date for my debut novel, Hot for the Principal. I got scared that if I shared the date too soon, and had something occur that would make me change it, I would feel heartbroken to those who supported me.
As you can see, I’m in a constant battle with myself and learning how I can manage both my personas as a reader and author. I’ve built such an amazing base with the community and know that even if I become a well-known author, I never want to let my account fizz out. I want to keep reading, writing reviews, sharing my life, and meeting new friends. If I’m being honest, having two accounts is good. You may be asking yourself “why does this crazy woman want to manage more accounts?” And the reason is the relationships I build with people. I’m a people person and although the audience between both accounts is relatively the same, I want to try and keep a balance between both personas. Already I've seen while posting on my author account that I have a more professional and fun tone; compared to my blogger account which is more bubbly and exciting. I didn’t want to disconnect those two though, I want to be seen as a professional writer, but I also want to be seen as the fun blogger who loves her steamy romance books.
So, to attempt to balance out my persona's, here are a few things I do. I’m going to list them out because who knows, maybe you can use them too!
I constantly use my planner to figure out what I’m doing, not only from a social media perspective, but also from a life perspective. If I have any upcoming events, I include those in my planner because I know it will be a day I write off any social media work.
I create a google sheet that is broken down by day and platform (this was a great tip from my current job). This has allowed me to break out every day in the month and platform so that I know exactly what needs to be going on that day. Obviously you don’t need to post everyday, but if you have a busy schedule this can help!
I take breaks. I don’t like to burn myself out on writing or reading so I try to keep a healthy balance for it. Since I’m not a full-time writer, I have to break out my time in the week that I want to dedicate to writing and reading. I can try to do both - but that will fail. I’ll admit though, I tend to lean more towards reading, only because I’m a newbie author still starting out.
I hope you enjoyed reading my first blog as an upcoming author. I’ve you want to learn more about my upcoming novel, Hot for the Principal, feel free to check out the “My Books” section on my website!
Feel free to follow me on my socials. You can find the links to them in the top right corner!
Xo,
Alexandria G.