Before releasing my September 2021 newsletter, I had been sitting on it for months. The last newsletter I dispatched was in May 2021. I must admit, my ambition got ahead of me, my energy, and my schedule, so I fell behind in my newsletter.
When I launched my newsletter in January 2020, I intended to do so monthly. I succeeded in maintaining this timetable. But sometime during 2020, I got even more ambitious. I began emailing the newsletter twice a month.
I kept up with that schedule for a while. Then my body and mind reminded me of the limited energy I could devote to all areas of my life. I have a daytime job, my family, my writing projects and marketing, errands, the need to sleep. So May 2021 became the last time I sent out a newsletter.
Then last June, I was a featured author at the 2021 Space Coast Book Lovers event in Cape Canaveral, Fla. I spoke with a sci-fi and romance author there. Up to that time, we had communicated via email and online as members of the same local writing community. But Space Coast Book Lovers was where I met her in person for the first time.
We discussed our writing schedules and agreed it's a challenge to balance all tasks of an indie author business, and that with other non-writing obligations. I said to her, "It's not so much that one can’t do the job; it’s about being able to devote time to that task.”
And that's true. This is how delaying my newsletter serves as a lesson reminder to me: it's about prioritizing what you have to do and want to do and then delegating the rest. Doing everything you're competent at is excellent, but hiring others for help is good too. I go to Fiverr and the local writing community for help in marketing and graphic design, as well as for finding editors and beta readers. I won't outsource my newsletter or blog writing to other people (or even an AI service, as such a service exists now).
So, I've decided to scale back to once a month for my newsletter. And after months of being dormant, here you go: The latest issue of my newsletter is now available. What’s more, if you sign up, you’ll get a free short story of mine to read. Enjoy!
Teresa Edmond-Sargeant is an award-winning journalist and author. She released her first collection of short stories "Inner Demons" in October 2020. She is the author of the short story ebooks "Eve the First,""For My Sister," and "Sammy's Butterflies" "A Symphony of Silence" is her second poetry collection. Her latest short story “Healing” is published on Short Fiction Break.