In this Self-Publishing Advice Conference highlight, discover practical ways to reclaim time and focus for your writing in an age of constant distraction and AI-driven tools. Troy Lambert breaks down seven realistic strategies for using your tools more deliberately and managing your time more efficiently. The session offers grounded, actionable ideas to help writers protect their creative energy, reduce overwhelm, and make consistent progress on their work.
Listen to the Podcast: Seven Ways to Create More Time for Your Writing
This is a post from SelfPubCon (The Self-Publishing Advice Conference), an online author event run free twice yearly in association with the Alliance of Independent Authors.
Additional Resources
Most planners and planning methods are rigid, designed for a linear, no-nonsense business world. What they fail to account for is creativity. So when authors try to use these systems, they often find that little gets done. That was Orna Ross’s experience. Frustrated by endless task lists, she developed her own approach. The Go Creative! method is rooted in creativity and designed specifically for writers and other creatives. If you want to set yourself up for publishing success in 2026, take a look at Creative Self-Publishing and the Go Creative! Workbook for Authors and Poets. Both are available as e-books and in print through the Self-Publishing Store at https://selfpublishingadvice.org/creative.
Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?
If you’re an ALLi member, head over to the SelfPubConnect forum for support from our experienced community of indie authors, advisors, and our own ALLi team. Simply create an account (if you haven’t already) to request to join the forum and get going.
Non-members looking for more information can search our extensive archive of blog posts and podcast episodes packed with tips and advice at ALLi's Self-Publishing Advice Center.
Read the Transcript
Troy Lambert: Welcome. I hope you're enjoying SelfPubCon so far — I enjoy it every time I'm a participant, an attendee, and a presenter. Today we're going to talk about maximizing your writing time in the age of AI: smart strategies for self-publishers.
I want you to focus on the word strategies for a few minutes. I'm going to talk to you about some tools — I've got a resources page on my website that covers those in more detail — but that's not what we're going to focus on today. Primarily we're going to focus on your overall strategy: why are you using AI in the first place? What is it actually doing for you? What problem are you trying to solve with it? Are you accomplishing that?
Who am I and why would you listen to me? I'm the author of over 32 novels and counting, several works of nonfiction, a developmental editor and book coach, a speaker, an educator, a freelance writer and journalist, and an occasional sleeper. That's actually true — I sleep between five and six hours a night and it seems to be all my body needs. Everybody's different.
The Problem: AI Tools, Tech Distractions, and Writing Time
So what's the problem we're trying to talk about and solve? In the age of AI there are all kinds of AI tools and tech distractions, on top of the social media we already had. I've been to countless conferences over the years where the big topic was: how do I stay off social media? And then the organizer says, by the way, post about this talk on Instagram. Now we've moved into a world where there are also lots of AI tools saying you can do this faster, or perform this task, or automate this — and some of those tasks are things you were never doing in the first place. Now you have a tool to perform them and you have to learn how to use it.
This is the bane of all authors all the time: too much time on marketing and admin, taking away from writing time. I want to market my books and I want them to sell, but I also want to write books — that's why I got into this in the first place. Self-publishing as a business is something most writers didn't fully understand when they signed up for it. I didn't either, though that was a number of years ago.
Strategy vs. Tactics
Let's talk for a second about strategy versus tactics. Strategy is your big-picture plan — your long-term vision, why you're doing what you're doing. This helps you focus on goals, not just tasks. You should have an overall writing strategy and an overall publishing strategy, and the things we're going to talk about today fit into that strategy or they don't. If they don't fit, maybe they don't belong at all.
Tactics are the specific actions you take. When you say ‘I'm going to use ChatGPT to give me some ideas when I have writer's block,' that is a tactic — because ChatGPT could go away or be replaced, and if I talk about those tactics in a session like this, this talk becomes obsolete in ten minutes when a new tool comes out. That's partly what we're talking about here.
An example of a strategy: create more time to write by reducing my marketing workload. The tactics are that you automate your email list onboarding with Mailer Lite or Kit (formerly ConvertKit), or you schedule posts weekly with Buffer or Vista Social or whatever platform you use. Those are tactics. I might move from Mailer Lite to a different email service provider — which I already have, by the way — or I might schedule posts with a different tool than Buffer. It doesn't really matter which tool you use. The strategic idea is the same: I don't spend as much time on social media because many of my posts are already automated, and I spend that time writing the next book instead.
Opportunity vs. Distraction
This is something I want to address particularly. There are new AI tools that will come out, and you'll hear that you can automate this task with AI, and you'll think: I've never done that thing before, but now that I can automate it, maybe I'm going to do it. But the question is: does that task fit into your overall strategy? Maybe you've been putting it off because you didn't have time or didn't know how, and now there's a tool that makes it possible — that's an opportunity. Or is it a distraction? Is this something that's not even related to your strategy? Why am I going to automate my TikTok posts when I'm not on TikTok or BookTok? Do I need to be? The answer is no. You don't need or have to be there. Only pursue opportunities.
I'll give you a real-world example that I'll come back to at the end. This year I'm doing a big project called the Solitaire Project. I have a deal with Spotify to produce 52 short audio versions of stories I wrote a long time ago — one a week for an entire year. That means producing emails, social media, ads, and promotions, while still doing all my writing and editing work. How do you add something so time-consuming every single week without losing everything else? That's a real example of a big opportunity that creates a huge workload.
Strategy 1: Time Tracking and Auditing
I cannot stress this one enough. Know where your time is going. Identify the leaks and plug them with time blocking and other tools. You have certain times of day when you are most creative and most productive as a writer. Every writer I know has their ideal time — and a lot of the time, we end up spending that time on something else and then sit down to write later and it doesn't work.
There's a tool I'm going to recommend called RescueTime. I'll warn you: the first time you look at that report after it's been installed for a week, you're going to be very discouraged. You'll see exactly how much time you actually spent on YouTube — what you thought was just 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, some doom scrolling, adds up to hours. So first, track your time. But also track your mood — how you're feeling and how productive you are during your writing time — and then optimize for the things you do best during the times when you do them best.
For tactics: Motion AI is an AI calendar and time-blocking tool. RescueTime tracks your time and tasks. If you have Apple products, you can use the built-in Screen Time feature. Toggl is another option. Spreadsheets work too — track your efficiency and mood, then change your schedule accordingly. If you wrote most productively from 10 to 11, set your writing time from 10 to 11.
Strategy 2: Automate Repetitive Tasks
Email marketing and onboarding is one of the top things to automate. If every time somebody joins your email list you stop what you're doing and send them an email, eventually you'll be running BookBub promotions and getting 200 or 300 new addresses at a time. You can't sit down and write a hundred individual emails, and you can't send them in bulk from Gmail. You need an email marketing system. I happen to use Kit; there's also MailerLite, ConvertKit, MailChimp (which is terrible, but it's there), SendFox, which is a basic but effective lifetime deal. All kinds of options.
Social media scheduling is another big one — Buffer, Vista Social, Hootsuite, whatever tool works for you. You can even automate posting to your blog. You can speed up book formatting using tools like Vellum and Atticus.
How do you choose what to automate? First ask: can I automate this task? As an editor, I do a 15-minute free consultation with prospective clients. I can't automate that — they actually want to talk to me, and each individual is so different. What I can automate is the scheduling of that time. I have a calendaring system they go through to book a time with me, and I just show up when my calendar tells me to. I'm using Tidy Cal for that. Are there cooler new tools? Yes — there's Luna Cal, which is even better. Am I switching? No, because I already have a tool that works and it's a system that keeps going.
When evaluating whether to automate something, ask: what tools do I already have that can make this happen? What tools do I need that I don't have? If I need to pick up something like Make, Zapier, or similar tools, I have to learn how to use them — and that's harder and takes time. How long will it take to learn that? And what problem am I actually trying to solve? Is this a problem I need to solve, or is it just something that sounds useful? Factor in how long the task currently takes you, how long it will take to learn to automate it, and how much time it will actually save once automated. Don't automate something that just creates a different problem.
Strategy 3: Batch Your Work
Create versus promote versus admin. You have creation time, promotion time, and business admin time. If you batch each of those — doing them all together — you're more focused and you save time because you can do more at once. You also batch by energy level. My writing time always comes in the morning. If I try to do it in the afternoon, I can, but it's not as effective and I'm not nearly as focused. The afternoon is for promotions and admin.
The information you need to batch your work effectively comes from step one — you have to know where your time is going. Then you start developing a time-blocking plan. As a preview of how I handle the Solitaire Project: I block recording time on an afternoon and evening and record a whole bunch of episodes at once, then edit them all at once. Then another afternoon and evening is for uploading everything to the various retailers and sites. I do it all at once, it's done three months ahead of time, and then I don't have to do it again.
If you're creating emails for your list, set aside a day and create your emails for the next quarter. You should have a promotion schedule — you have certain things you're doing each month for certain promotions. Batch all the strategic work at once. One afternoon I'm going to write Facebook ads and create all the ad creative — I schedule it all out, put it all in folders ready to go, and I don't have to do that task again for the next month.
Strategy 4: Use AI Wisely
Drafting emails and social media posts — always check these. Ad copy — always check that. But you can have AI create drafts for you. Ad copy is really hard to produce quickly, but AI can draft it and then you go over those drafts and add your human touch. Humanity reaches humanity. You need to humanize everything AI produces, make it yours, make it genuinely coming from you — and you will have greater success. But can you get a useful draft out of AI? Absolutely.
Conceptualizing covers. Even if you don't use AI for your final covers — which most of the time you shouldn't, not necessarily because of ethical concerns, though those exist, but because of quality limitations — you can create a cover concept and hand it to your cover designer or illustrator to finish. Creating ad creative with human input works the same way. AI can produce really cool images, but some of them can be very wrong — too many fingers, strange proportions. It's getting better. For the Solitaire Project, trying to get AI to produce what a playing card looks like proved very difficult.
Tools include ChatGPT, Midjourney, Grok — they're all useful. ChatGPT has a new image model as of the time I'm recording this. If you're watching this six months from now, there'll be something newer. You can also use AI for automation of moving assets from creation into a spreadsheet or tracking system — tools like Make, Zapier, Claude, and others. Check the resources page on my website for current tools, as these change all the time.
Strategy 5: Systemize Your Publishing Process
You should have a system already for your drafting process, your publishing process, and your marketing process. This should be part of your overall writing business strategy. You need a repeatable workflow, and within that workflow every single thing has steps. You have templates for launch plans, email sequences, ARC outreach. Consider tools like Notion, Airtable, Asana, Trello, and similar — all great for creating templates for different parts of your process.
Once you have a system, you can start identifying what within it you can automate. You're going to automate your email sequences, parts of your launch plan and the social media that goes with it, and your ARC outreach. Every time somebody on your review team messages you, you're not going to individually send them a file through BookFunnel or StoryOrigin — you're going to set up an automated delivery system.
If you don't have a process in place, you can't determine what to automate and what not to, or whether something is a distraction or an opportunity, because you don't know what you're doing. Some people say systems and planning drives them crazy. You don't have to apply that to the writing part of your process — though I have arguments for why it might help there too. But for editing, formatting, and launching, you absolutely should have systems, because then you know exactly what to do next.
Decision fatigue is actually a thing for authors. If you make too many decisions throughout the day, when you sit down to write you can't make decisions about which way your story is going to go. You're out of whatever analogy you prefer — pennies, spoons — you just don't have any left. This is why we put systems in place. For me it's very simple: I'm done with self-revision, I put the manuscript in a Google Drive folder, and the system automatically sends my editor an email: there's a manuscript for you to edit, please grab it. When she's done, dropping it back in a folder automatically sends me a notification. Real simple stuff, but it saves all kinds of time.
Strategy 6: Delegate or Outsource
If you determine that you still need to do a task, but you can't automate it, and it takes up too much of your time — hire a VA or a freelancer. Formatting, marketing tasks, research, creating a series bible. Time equals money. Don't do everything yourself. You cannot do everything yourself. You will want to, as a self-publisher, you will want to run your entire business solo. Stop trying. It doesn't work.
Some people say it's too expensive. I don't agree. Automation is just delegating or outsourcing to AI or an automation platform. If you're delegating to a person, Book Brush and other services have programs where you can hire VAs trained to do author work, sometimes at $7 to $9 an hour for high-quality work from the Philippines and similar locations — and you're making a real difference in someone's life. There are also more complex tasks where you might want a US-based VA. ADR Wiggins is one who comes to mind — she does continuity editing and various VA work. She doesn't do social media, so maybe you outsource that elsewhere, but she's excellent for things like series continuity. Just understand that you'll pay a little more for someone stateside.
I know how to format books and can do it very fast. But I've had authors come to me having spent hours fighting with formatting and not getting it right, and I fixed it in under an hour. That's the value of hiring someone with specific expertise. Don't try to do everything yourself.
Strategy 7: Protect Your Writing Time
Protect your writing time. Protect your writing time. Protect your writing time. Your writing is how you produce the product you are able to sell as a self-publisher. So you must take time to write. Writing, regardless of everything happening with AI and everything happening around us, is still about the craft of writing — the time and emotion and energy you spend writing.
First, don't let yourself make so many decisions throughout the day that you don't have the mental energy left to write or to make the right choices about your manuscript. Second, block your writing time off like you would a doctor's appointment, and do not let anyone take that time away from you, regardless of how much of a priority they think they are. Whatever they need from you is not more important than your writing time.
Review: Work Smarter, Not Harder
Work smarter, not harder. The seven strategies: audit your time — figure out where it's going, identify the leaks, plug them. Automate what you can. Batch things together — work on similar tasks at the same time, block time for creation, then promotion, then admin. Don't try to multitask. Multitasking is a myth. Focus is what's going to get you where you want to go. Use AI as an assistant — use it wisely. Systemize everything you do — have a system for what you do and follow it. The same repeatable pattern over and over. This is how you determine what you can automate, where you can batch, what AI can help with. If you can't automate it, delegate it or outsource it — don't keep trying to do everything yourself. And protect your writing time. Protect your writing time. Protect your writing time.
Real-World Example: The Solitaire Project
Back to the real-world example. Here's how I solved the Solitaire Project challenge. First, I did a time audit and calibrated how long it takes to edit and record episodes, create blurbs, emails, and social media posts. I timed each task as I did it. Over time I get faster — but that initial calibration still stands, and I block out that much time every week. I block recording time for when my girlfriend is at work and the neighbors are quiet — so even though I'm in a sound booth, nothing goes wrong during that recording session.
Then I automated the creation of blurbs, social media posts, weekly emails, blog posts, and the scheduling of all of that. All automated as much as possible. I batched recording time — recording several episodes at once rather than one a week — and I get and stay ahead. I developed a system for uploading to platforms and scheduling releases. Parts of each system are done at the same time in batches. I delegated some analytics and ad management. And I protect my time through time blocking and time limits.
Time limits are something I didn't talk about extensively, but they're really important. I have two hours to work on this task. I set a timer and two hours from now I stop, no matter what. Don't keep working on a task when you think you're on a roll — all that does is mess up the rest of your time blocking, and at the end of the day you'll feel like you made poor decisions.
Closing and Resources
This is a recorded presentation, so normally I'd take some Q&A — you've probably seen me around at the conference anyway. If you want resources and to contact me, go to my website. At the bottom is a form to sign up for my email list if you want more information — tips and tricks and maybe some special offers, no spam ever. There are also pages on the website for you to contact me. Or find me on social media or at a conference.
I love talking about this. I love talking about the craft of writing, and I love talking about how to protect the time I spend in that human effort of creating my stories. Thanks for joining me, everybody. I appreciate it, and we'll see you around.
