Every year schedule time to review and update your LinkedIn profile. When someone does a Google search for your name or industry, your LinkedIn profile may come up. Be sure it shows you at your best.
Take some time to build deeper relationships with your LinkedIn network. I make it a goal to reach out to connect on the phone with someone in my network each week so we can learn more about what another, what we do, and how we can support one another.
Use your existing network to find new connections and ask for an introduction. Explain to your connection why you want an introduction.
Take note of what your network is talking about on LinkedIn so you can participate in discussions and share your expertise. Write article and share to groups as appropriate. Before you share your articles to groups, make sure you’ve participated in the group in a meaningful way and commented on other member’s posts.
Media people receive hundreds of pitches daily via email. Yours needs to stand out if you hope to get any response. Here are a few tips for pitching to the media:
Address the person by name. If you don’t have a specific name, find one. Do your research on their website or give them a call to find the right person to send your pitch to. Find out what kinds of stories they like to cover so you can tailor your pitch to what interests them.
The first thing they’ll see in your email is the subject line. A clear, concise subject line is important. Never use all caps or exclamation points.
Keep your email short and to the point. Explain what you are pitching and why. Pitch a story–not your book. Your story needs to be newsworthy. What current events or trends can you tie in?
If you have a press release, don’t attach it since files can contain viruses and this may prevent the media person from opening your email. Instead include a link to where they can read it online.
End with a clear call to action: what you want, and why they should reply.
Be sure to include your full contact information in your email signature–name, phone, email, and website. Consider including your social media sites as well so the media person can do their research on you.
Don’t send the same pitch twice to the same media outlet. If they didn’t respond the first time, they will just be annoyed that you sent it again.
Today, a special post about getting writing done rather than marketing your writing. To begin, tell me a little about yourself. As a writer, how many of these have you experienced in the past two years? You can use the checkboxes to keep track. They’re not storing anything anywhere.
Never finding the time to write
Making the time but not writing
Dreaming of writing but never getting started
Starting but never finishing
Starting but never finishing that one particular piece
Thinking you can do it without help
Thinking you’re beyond help
A love/hate relationship with your writing
Focusing on unhelpful negative feedback and ignoring positive feedback
Focusing on positive feedback and ignoring helpful negative feedback
Wanting to write deep but writing shallow
Writing for others instead of yourself
Writing for money but not treating it like a business Reading about writing instead of writing
Seeking out feedback before you’re ready
Seeking out the wrong level of feedback Ongoing health challenges like
Unexplained fatigue(physical or mental)
Mysterious illness(a neverending or recurring cold or flu) Injuries(constant little accidents) Addiction of any kind (substance, activities, self-destructive habits)
How many did you check?
Is it more than zero? (If it’s zero, I’d love to hear about that.)
Otherwise, that’s Resistance.
In the past 11 years I’ve written 20 books and 200 songs. I checked 17 boxes. SEVENTEEN.
I’m facing Resistance.
You’re facing Resistance.
Resistance? What’s That?
According to Steven Pressfield in his seminal work The War of Art Resistance is the mental and emotional pushback we feel when we expose ourselves by creating something. It is our unconscious mind protecting us from the “danger” of emotional vulnerability. It manifests in all the ways in that checklist above, and more.
Resistance is a bully. It will stand in your way and stop you. It will knock you down and hurt you, emotionally, even physically.
Resistance strikes nonfiction and fiction authors alike. (Memoirists, are you hearing me?) Writing a business book is still a creative endeavor and will expose you to fear.
It will stop you from writing using the tools you checked off in that list above.
It’s Not Just You & I
“I was ashamed. I have spent a good many years since—too many, I think—being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who as ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent.”
“. . . in my heart I stayed ashamed. I kept hearing Miss Hisler asking why I wanted to waste my talent, why I wanted to waste my time, why I wanted to write junk.”
Who was this loser?
Stephen King. Stephen350 million books soldKing.
This is a quote from his On Writing which, although not precisely instructional, is the most inspiring book I’ve read when it comes to staying the course as a writer.
This is the quote that gave me my writing life back. (Ask me about that story someday.)
Our innate desire to have our work accepted can lead to problems if we put what others believe about our “God-given talent” ahead of what we need to write. It’s one of many ways Resistance twists natural feelings into quicksand.
What’s a Writer to Do?
You cannot defeat Resistance once and move on. It’s part of our mental and emotional makeup. You can, though, make it irrelevant. Note that I don’t say ignore it because you can’t ignore a bully. But if you defuse them, do things to take away their power, they are no longer a threat. Like the bully at school (or, frankly, in the office) they still show up every day. But we don’t have to keep giving them our lunch money.
Being a writer is hard. You don’t have to do this alone.
It’s not going to be a collective moan-fest or even chat-fest. Instead, it’s a guided learning environment, a community of writers making a safe place for some “you’re not alone” emotional support. It will also cover practical and actionable tools and processes to get you writing and keep you writing.
Membership is $5 per month or only $25 for the whole year. Questions? Comments? Shout ’em out below and I’ll answer every one.
There is no “best time to post” on any social media.
Any study that claims to reveal the perfect time to post on any social media platform is, instead, revealing the mathematical results of an algorithm they used to calculate certain (possibly beneficial) outcomes at one particular moment in time, for some general group of posters.
No one can possibly tell you when the bulk of your followers and potential followers will be ready to receive your message. There is no calculation to allow one post to be carefully planned to accomplish more than some other post.
Here’s what works: consistent persistent personal relevant content.
Always has. Always will. No trickery or algorithms needed.
Update
An article by the social media management tool company Buffer makes the same point with more specifics.
Every year schedule time to review and update your LinkedIn profile. When someone does a Google search for your name or industry, your LinkedIn profile may come up. Be sure it shows you at your best.
How many did you check? 
