Balancing Multiple Projects

Things used to be simple when I wrote for Kensington. I had to turn in one book a year. Easy, right? I wrote my Bad Hair Day mysteries and nothing else. It wasn’t until the publisher turned down my option book that I started writing in other genres to see what would sell.

Now it’s years later, and I'm still seeking a home for my two new mystery series. Meanwhile, Wild Rose Press picked up my romances, and I am preparing to launch a new paranormal series. Then Five Star published my tenth Marla Shore mystery. So years after I thought this series was dead, I’m writing it again. Before starting the eleventh book, I completed the first three books in my romance series. So those are all done, except for the edits, page proofs, and promotion.

And herein comes the juggling act. I am attempting to move forward with Bad Hair Day mystery #11, but I keep having to halt work on this project to do page proofs and revisions for the Drift Lords series, not to mention planning the promotional campaign for the series launch and taking time off to go to the Malice conference.

Meanwhile, those two completed mysteries linger in the back of my mind. Should I continue submitting them to small press or self-publish? If the latter, should I publish them as stand-alones or as the first books in new series?

Before deciding on these titles—and we’re still waiting for responses—I would like to self-publish my deceased father’s book. He hitchhiked across the U.S. in 1929 and his story includes some fascinating adventures. So my projects include:

1. The Drift Lords series from The Wild Rose Press
2. A new Bad Hair Day mystery
3. The possibility of self-publishing three titles
4. The possibility of one of my other mysteries selling in the interim

Never before have we had so many options. It’s an exciting time but it’s also all consuming. Who has free time when we can publish our entire body of works, and then when we have to spend hours on the social networks promoting them?

Do you find that your writing production has increased with the advent of new technologies? How are you balancing your writing projects, promotional efforts, and private life?