Many writers don’t write full time. They fit their writing in and around their full-time jobs or around caring for their families. If they write for a living, or, like me, write and edit for a living, they may have little time to work on personal writing projects during the day. Plus, as we’ve seen if writers seriously take on the task of promoting themselves to build their platforms, this also can take up an enormous part of their day or the time that could be spent writing.
It’s no wonder, then that many writers, myself included, moan about the fact that they have no time to write. They also may complain that they have no time to market themselves with their writing. I’m here today (Yes, just me again…I’m the expert blogger.) to tell you that a way exists to get a lot of writing done and to use it in a variety of useful ways that doesn’t take up a lot of time. The most efficient time-management tool I have discovered over the years involves “repurposing” your work.
This means reusing your writing, as well as your telesminars, talks, blogs, news releases, etc., for other purposes. The best way for me to explain this is to offer you examples from my own experiences.
Let’s say I write a brief article for my Examiner.com column, a job I took on primarily for promotional reasons. It gives me great exposure online but pays very little. (If you would like to know more about how to become an Examiner, please read about Examiner.com here or apply here – but be sure to use my name when you apply—I get a $50 referral fee, and every little bit helps. Thanks.) I can then expand upon what I write in that column and use it in my blog at www.purespiritcreations.com/wordpress. I also then link the two, increasing readership in both places.
Here’s an even better example of how I repurpose material with very little effort: Each month I produce a podcast script for my show on Conversations with Mrs. Claus (www.thefamilyyak.com). This takes me most of a day. I then take a piece of the script, usually something that includes tips, and modify it slightly to create an article I can submit to the ezine distribution service I use, www.submityourarticle.com. I use this same article in my Pure Spirit Creations newsletter. Then, I take the same article and rewrite it as news release by placing some of the information in quotes. In other words, I make it sound as if someone interviewed me. I then submit this news release to ExpertClick.com’s newswire service, so it can be read by journalists. (If you are interested in increasing your status as an expert and becoming a member of Expertclick.com or The Yearbook of Experts, please use this link to receive $100 off our membership.) I may even use the same information as the basis for a blog post at www.purespiritcreations.com/wordpress. So, this one piece of work, which wasn’t even actually writing work—although it did take the form of a script, turned into three or four other pieces of writing. All my podcasts scripts may also become fodder one day for a book.
Blog posts also can be turned into articles or essays. Mine tend to be somewhat “essay like” in nature much of the time. It’s easy enough for me to add a few tips to them and submit them to an ezine distribution service, put them into my newsletter or actually submit the piece to a magazine. If yours tend to be more businesslike and include tips, think about how to modify them into personal essays or full-length articles by adding examples from your own life experiences. If you write a series on the same topic, you may find that you have the makings of an e-book or special report.
I added an opt-in to my website called the “Living Fully Challenge.” I offered people a free one-year-long course, basically, in how to live their lives more fully. All they had to do was sign up–giving me the ability to place their email address on my mailing list; in return, they received an assignment every month for a full year. (Not that many people signed up, but enough did to keep it going for about a year and a half.) At the end 12 months, I discovered I had written a book. I simply wrote an introduction, and, wallah…manuscript completed. It’s being reviewed by a publisher as I write this post.
If you conducts teleseminars or classes in conjunction with your writing, these can be transcribed and edited into e-books or other written products you can sell. Your talks and workshops can be made into videos or CD or MP3 series, which you also can sell.
Look at all your writing work for ways in which it can be repurposed, and you’ll find that you can get a lot of writing accomplished in little time. You’ll also market and promote yourself in less time than you thought it necessary to get the job done. When you examine your writing output at the end of the day, you’ll be amazed at how much writing you’ve accomplished—both what you wanted to write and what you needed to write to handle the “business of writing.”
About the Author
Nina Amir is a seasoned journalist, nonfiction editor, author, consultant, and writing coach with more than 30 years of experience in the publishing field. She has edited or written for 45+ local, national and international magazines, newspapers, e-zines, and newsletters on a full-time or freelance basis. Her essays have been published in five anthologies and can be found in numerous e-zines and Internet article directories. An award-winning journalist, she also has a proven track record as a book editor; one of her client’s books was self-published and then purchased and re-released verbatim by Simon & Schuster (Fireside) and another won the 1998 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Award (Inspirational category), received a contract from William Morrow but remained self-published and went on to sell over 115,000 copies. Another of her client’s books recently was purchased by O-Books, a fast-growing British publisher.
Nina also is an inspirational speaker, spiritual and conscious creation coach, teacher, and the regular holiday and spirituality expert on Conversations with Mrs. Claus, a weekly podcast heard in more than 90 countries and downloaded by 110,000 listeners per month (www.thefamilyyak.com). Through her writing and speaking, Amir offers human potential, personal growth and practical spiritual tools from a Jewish perspective, although her work spans religious lines and is pertinent to people of all faiths and spiritual traditions.
Additionally, Amir has written and self-published several booklets and workbooks, including:
- Using the Internet to Build Your Platform One Article at a Time, 8 Tips for Getting Publicity, Exposure and Expert Status by Providing Free Copy Online
- The Priestess Practice: 4 Steps to Creating Sacred Space and Inviting the Divine to Dwell Within It
- The Kabbalah of Conscious Creation: How to Mystically Manifesting Your Physical and Spiritual Desires
- From Empty Practice to Meaning-Full and Spirit-Full Prayers and Rituals…in Seven Simple Steps
- Navigating the Narrow Bridge: 7 Steps for Moving Forward Courageously Even When Life Seems Most Precarious
Currently Amir is writing four books; she also compiled a Jewish celebrity cookbook for which she is seeking a publisher.
To learn how to use the Internet to build your platform one article at a time, why every author needs a platform or how to enhance your expert status by posting articles online, go to:
http://www.copywrightcommunications.com/Teleseminars.html orhttp://www.copywrightcommunications.com/Products.html
Nina Amir
CopyWright Communications
cpywrtcom@aol.com
www.copywrightcommunications.com
www.purespiritcreations.com
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nina-Amir/1180528530
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nina-amir/6/460/134
http://twitter.com/ninaamir
www.mysoncandance.wordpress.com
www.purespiritcreations.com/wordpress
http://www.examiner.com/x-7363-San-Jose-Jewish-Examiner
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Hey, I just thought you might wanna know that you’re blog’s sidebar isn’t showing up properly in K-Meleon. I’m using Linux though, so I’m not sure if the problem is from me.