So, my friend – here we are again, and almost half-way through 2019. WTH? Seriously? How the heck did that happen? **looks around in a panic** but I still have SO MUCH TO DO! Ever feel this way? ?
In this installment of indie-author adventures we’ll be chatting about disappointed monkeys, and “finding the time”. So, let’s jump riiiiight in.
This Past Week
Soooo, you’ve probably heard or seen others talking about the big changes with MailChimp. /sigh/ As an author and entrepreneur who has used MailChimp – I have to say… I’m not mad, but I’m a little disappointed.
BUT — I also get it.
A business is in business to make money. If they aren’t making money, they aren’t in business for long. That’s just a fact.
So, on the one hand, I cannot fault MailChimp for the changes they made in order to up their profits and continue providing their services. On the other hand, I can say I personally think how they went about it was a #SpectacularFail.
Much like this last season of Game of Thrones — it wasn’t the individual events that had people upset… it was, in most cases, the fact that it felt very rushed, forced, and like they were just sprinting to the finish line.
That’s kinda how this feels.
The biggest part I have an issue with is automation sequences now being behind the “pay wall”. Really – that’s my biggest gripe.
I work with a LOT of authors, many of them relatively new in the field and let’s be real for a second, indie-authors getting started often don’t have a lot of budget to work with, and what budget they have, needs to be spent on things like a good editor, or decent covers.
Automation sequences may not be the “bread and butter” for indie authors… but they are certainly a critical component of a good email marketing strategy – which, let’s face it, having a good email marketing strategy and building that relationship with our readers is HUGE! And with the sometimes quite limited amount of time many indie-authors have, automation sequences are a critical component of that.
Now, again, I don’t fault a company for trying to make money – that’s the whole point, after all. What I take issue with on this is it seemed very sudden, very forced, and (as a gamer) feels more like a “pay to play” system now.
There are plenty of ways they could have increased their profit margins, including better management of duplicate accounts, lowering the limit from 2k to 1k (which is the # most of the other free mail list services use – so it wouldn’t have been a huge shock to the system)… and, maybe most importantly… made sure people had AMPLE lead time coming into this.
Yes, yes, I know they sent emails saying here’s the changes coming. But, for myself (and others I’ve spoken with), the first notice they saw about it was within a short period (*cough*same-day*cough*) before it took effect, leaving many without enough time to either plan accordingly, or even take their ball to another playground.
As for me – I’m taking my ball to another playground – and I cannot in good faith continue to recommend them to almost every single other author I work with as part of my author-tech biz.
Which yeah, is really disappointing – I’ve adored MailChimp for a long time. ?
Not because it will not longer be free (it wasn’t going to be free after this most recent promotion anyway)… but because of the bungled handling of how they implemented the new changes.
But anyway…
The other point this brought up for a lot of indies I know is “finding the time”.
Where am I going to find the time to move to a different email provider?
or the more common:
Where am I going to find the time to actually finish writing this book.
You’ve heard me talk about this before, from a different angle. Being an indie-author is a long-game… not a sprint. That being said, we are all at different places with how much time we have to devote to our indie-author careers… and NONE OF THEM ARE “wrong”… ugh! Just because someone is in a different spot in their journey does not somehow negate or lessen the effort any other author has put in, or somehow diminish where they are in their journey!!
(sorry, had to get that one point off my chest before continuing! LOL)
But – here’s the deal. No matter where you are in your indie-author adventure, we all have the same 24-hours in a day.
That’s just real talk, that’s not really a debatable point.
The only difference is our responsibilities that we must work into that 24-hours.
You can’t FIND time.
Let me say that again….
There’s not some lost pool of time out there just waiting for someone to magically come find it and scoop out some extra time from it’s depths.
Sorry – I wish it were so… but it isn’t.
You can’t MAKE time.
It’s not a cake where you just toss in some ingredients (and extra chocolate please!) and voila, extra time!
Nope. Doesn’t work that way either.
You TAKE the time.
That’s it. That’s the big (non)secret.
You have 24-hours in your day the same as I do mine. TAKE the time you need to do what is truly important to you… whether that’s writing/marketing/book-cons… or painting, or reading, or dancing naked in the woods. ??
It sounds simple to type it out like that – and obviously life is a bit more complicated than a few letters scattered across a web page… but at the same time, it really is exactly that simple.
It’s priorities. And once a person figures out what their’s truly are… those things they cannot live without doing… that’s then they TAKE the time to do what needs to be done.
And – although it sure sounds like it LOL – I’m really not preaching to anyone other than myself here, because I need this reminder just as much as everyone else sometimes! ??
What I Accomplished
- Lots and lots of worry and stress (you know how life stuff can be sometimes)
- Blog posts
- FB Live
- Author tech coaching live training call/course
- Converted two of my personal sites away from MailChimp
- Writing
- Upcoming courses planning / recording
- Customer meetings
- Oh yeah – and some writing too! ??
- (but no dancing naked in the woods)?
The Big Takeaway
[bctt tweet=”We all have the same 24-hours. You can’t MAKE time, you can’t FIND time, you can only TAKE time. Figure out your soul-deep priorities and then taking time becomes an afterthought.” username=”MoriganShaw”]