It’s okay to be a slacker. Honestly. I want you to take a deep breath. Relax. And close your Facebook, twitter, Google+, and Instagram apps. It’s okay. I promise that your book sales or blog rankings will not suffer and your children will not end up on freeway off ramps holding cardboard signs.

Because I’m going to give you a secret. Now, don’t just go spouting this to everyone. You can pay me back the next time we happen to meet inside a Starbucks.

Ready?

Here’s the best kept marketing secret of the 21^st century:

1. Write the book.

The second best marketing secret is:

2. Write the next book.

Blown away?

Yeah, so was I. We shall, henceforth, refer to those as the Writer’s Golden Rules (WGR).

Indie authors seem to understand this. It’s how some fairly obscure writers are pulling down a good living. Traditionally published authors are catching on as well, despite the long-past-the-expiration-date advice we’re all getting from the “experts.”

The golden age of social media marketing lasted about nineteen minutes. Move on.

Some of you are already suffering withdrawals. I can feel your fingers trembling over that Facebook icon with its mocking little red number 1 up in the corner. Oops…it just went to 2.

Be strong. You can do this.

Here’s the truth of You, Writer. You are extremely busy. All writers are. Indie superstar Russell Blake says he writes 12-14 hours a day. Every day. I asked him about exercise and he told me he writes while walking on a treadmill.

Still think you’re alone in your busy-ness?

I’ve never seen a twitter post from Russell, who makes more than all the engineers on my floor, combined. Know why? Because Russell follows the WGRs.

You have, if you’re like most writers, one or two hours per day to plot, write, and edit. If you only have 60 minutes, your social networking likely eats ten. If you’re fast. That’s about 3,000 minutes per year. 50 hours. Most of you can crank out 500-1000 words an hour. Do your own math, but you’ve just written about half of a novel on twitter. Know what kind of royalties twitter is paying these days?

Yeah. Let’s not do that any more. You have my permission. Take the ten extra minutes I’ve just gifted to you and write something brilliant.

~*~

Ron Estrada writes Young Adult and Middle Grade novels for kids seeking God’s truth. He can be found at his website at RonEstradaBooks.com. And yes, you can find him on Facebook, too, but tell him to get back to work if you find him loitering there too long.