Christmas is hard. There are deadlines to meet, agents to keep happy, and fans to engage with. On top of that, there are traditions to uphold, presents to wrap, and family dinners to survive. What should be one of the most fun and sacred times of the year often becomes one of the busiest.
It’s tempting to steal away from the parties to spend some time on social media. It’s easy to sneak a peak on a smartphone or start your day off by going through your Google Reader. Once that happens, it’s even easier to open the laptop and start writing.
Forget family. Forget holidays. There’s a blog that needs to be updated! There are thousands of fans who will abandon you if you don’t post! You can write a blog post on your iPad while attending your son’s choir performance, right? All the good authors post during the holiday season.
Are you listening to yourself? You aren’t a writing machine.
You are a person with a family who wants to spend time with you this holiday season. You need a holiday just as much as every other person on the planet. Don’t deprive yourself of one just because you want to boost your blog numbers. When you live that way, no one wins. It’s one thing to meet a publisher’s deadline but if you can buy yourself time with your family, do it!
Think about taking ten days off your blog, starting December 22. Those ten days are some of the most jam-packed with memory making opportunities. Still need convincing on why you should take some time off? Jon Acuff wrote a post giving readers five reasons they should walk away from their blog this Christmas.
Are you finally convinced you need to take the time off? Here are three Christmas survival tips for authors that will let you walk away from your computer with ease.
1. Schedule posts
Take advantage of the “schedule post” option on WordPress. We created a how-to article to walk you through the steps. You can also schedule your author Facebook page posts.
Take two afternoons this week to write ten days worth of blog content. You don’t have to create ten blog posts. You only have to create ten days worth of content. So if you only post twice a week, you’re only creating four, maybe five blog posts.
Compare your editorial calendar with your social calendar. This is the time of the year that you can let your social calendar win.
2. Repost the top ten blog posts of the year
Jon Acuff recently suggested this to his followers and it’s a fantastic idea.
It gives you the chance to breathe and your readers the chance to rediscover why they fell in love with your writing all over again. So go through your analytics and find out which posts got the most traffic and the most comments. (Here’s a video on how to install Google Analytics on your site.)
Repost them as they are or spend a few minutes to write a new introduction. Make sure all the information is up to date.
Not all of your fans have read all of your posts. There will be a lot of readers who recently started following your blog and have no idea what other posts you have written.
3. Walk Away
This might be the most unpopular choice on the list.
But let’s face it. Sometimes authors and their fans need breaks. This is one of the hardest things for an author to do because they fear that they will never come back to their writing. Or their readers will forget about them.
That’s not likely to happen. Writing a post letting your readers know that you are taking the holidays off will remind them that you are human. Scheduling posts ahead of time will let you walk away guilt-free. It’s a win-win situation.
Tweetables:
- I just figured out how to save my Christmas! – Click to Tweet
- I’m taking a break from my blog this Christmas. You should too. – Click to Tweet
- Give your new readers a reason to fall in love with your website this Christmas. – Click to Tweet
- I’m taking the advice of Jon Acuff and Author Media. I’m quitting! Kind of. – Click to Tweet.
- I’m taking the dare! Join me in blogging smart and spending time with family this Christmas. – Click to Tweet
Want to give the gift of a new website to an author in your life? Ask us how.
