Some of Kristina Adams’s musings and observations that don’t fit anywhere else. Warning: may be excessively sweary.
Ever since Productivity for Writers was published, I’ve toyed with whether or not to create a print version.
Initially I chose not to because doing so is time-consuming and reaps little rewards.
However, after I downloaded Scrivener 3, I felt Productivity for Writers would be the perfect opportunity for me to practise with its new formatting options.
And it was.
Continue reading “Introducing the Productivity for Writers Paperback”
Today is my 28th birthday. I can’t quite believe I’ve made it this far, nor can I believe how much I’ve changed in the last three years, let alone the last 28.
Naturally, of course, my birthday has made me go all pensive. So here’s 28 things I’ve learnt in my 28 years…
A few months ago now, I wrote about how I’m changing my marketing tactics.
I’m pleased to say that since I did so, book sales have gone up.
Not only that, but hits to The Writer’s Cookbook have tripled.
Now it’s time for more changes to my marketing strategy…
When you’re trying to build a brand, it’s important that it’s easy for your audience to find you.
One of the ways to do this is to have the same username on all social media platforms.
I’d attempted this a few times, but every time I came up with a username I liked, it was either taken or too long for Twitter.
Recently, I settled on using the same name as this blog for my social media. But that was also too long for Twitter 🙄
So I decided rather than sacrificing the username I wanted, I’d use that everywhere else (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), and pick a shorter version for Twitter.
And that’s what I’ve done!
Here’s where you can now find me:
You can still find me on Google+ as well, but since that won’t let me add a custom URL (I’ve no idea why), I haven’t included it in the list.
I’ve also created a completely new Instagram that focuses on my books and blog. Unlike my other account, it’s a business account, so I can schedule posts in advance. I currently use Planoly for this, but if you use a different tool to schedule posts to Instagram I’d love to hear about it!
My next step is to set up SmarterQueue. I gave their trial a go earlier in the month and was really impressed. It’s super easy to use and my followers and engagement rates skyrocketed. Since the trial ended, they’ve plummeted 😱
Once that’s ready to go, my evergreen content will share to my social media accounts automatically. This will give me more time to create content, write books, and get more done.
How do you manage your social media accounts? Do you have the same username across all platforms? Why/why not?
Aiming to read a certain number of books in a year helps to keep you focused.
Sharing that number online adds a further level of accountability.
It’s thanks to tracking my reading on Goodreads that I read more books in 2017 than in any other year of my life.
I’m super proud of this achievement, but, as I got further into my goal for the year, cracks started to appear.
There were some books that needed to be read more slowly so that I could fully understand and process their wisdom.
Other books—particularly fiction—didn’t require this quite so much. I read more nonfiction last year, though, and I intend to continue this trend in 2018.
That’s why, in 2018, my new goal is to focus on reading quality, not quantity.
Continue reading “Why I’m Focusing on Reading Quality, Not Quantity, in 2018”
I’ve been trying to write a post about everything that happened in 2017 all month.
Truth is, I don’t really know where to start.
It’s been a tumultuous year. Not just politically, but for me personally, too. (I’m not going down the rabbit hole of this year’s politics. That’s a whole book right there.)
If I’d known just how things were going to pan out in the latter half of the year, I never would’ve scheduled Productivity for Writers to be published in September.
Like there are countless ways to write a poem, there are countless ways to approach your marketing strategy.
What I love about writing and marketing is that things are always changing. There’s always more to learn, and there are millions of people out there who have more knowledge and experience than I could ever dream of.
For a long time I put my main focus on writing my books, with my blog as my secondary focus. My tertiary focus was social media management. I scheduled posts into Buffer so that even when I was busy my content would still be shared.
I love Buffer, both as a company and a software. Their product is easy-to-use, and I adore how they operate as a company.
However, recent events have got me thinking.
It wasn’t until recently that I started to realise just how quickly things can change.
When we have our monthly all-hands at work, we spend a few minutes updating each other on what’s going on in our work and personal lives.
In the eight months I’ve been working for Cronofy, a lot has changed.
The last few weeks have just about finished me off.
I was already stressed because moving web hosts is my absolute least favourite thing about owning websites, but then to add serious stress to things, Mum went into hospital two weeks before she moved house.
There really couldn’t have been worse timing.
I’ve been wanting to set up an author website for a while now. I put it off because I wanted to wait until the current host for The Writer’s Cookbook was almost up. That way, I could create the new site and move my current one over around the same time.