Lately, more people have been asking me about my email management techniques than about book promotion tactics.  With two businesses, three PR clients, dozens of journalists, over 1000 emails a day, and no end in sight, how do I get it all done?  I’ll talk about time management another time, but here’s how I manage my email:

• Every morning, I immediately delete all the obvious junk—everything from the Nigerian inquiries to the Viagra ads.
• I whip through my lists (all of which come as digests) to see if there’s anything I need to respond to.  If not, I delete.  
• I then get back to all the journalists looking for quotes, whether from me or from my PR clients. Journalists are always under deadline pressure, so this is the one part of your email onslaught that you shouldn’t wait with.
•  I file everything else into an email folder.  Here are my categories:

• Journalists (I break this folder down further into hot (that’s for when Oprah calls), warm (those are the journalists with whom I’m on friendly terms) and cold (those with whom I don’t yet have a relationship.)  For many authors, just a journalist folder will probably be sufficient.
• Action (Action means I need to do something about it today, or at least this week.)
• Someday (Someday is if I need to do something about it one of these days, but realistically it’s not going to happen this week.)
• Waiting for.  (This folder holds all the email (which I CC to myself) when I’ve delegated a responsibility to someone else such as my assistant; or when I’ve written to someone for more information and am waiting to hear from them (such as a bookstore on whether or not they’re going to do a booksigning for a client.)
• Client folders.  (I have one folder for each of my major clients.  All email that pertains to them—unless it’s an action I need to take, something I’m waiting for, or relevant to a journalist, is stored in their folder for easy reference.)
• Book folders.  (I keep one folder labeled for each of my books, so that I can easily slide relevant email in; when I’m ready to update the book, I just go through the folder.)
• Organizations.  (Likewise, I keep one folder for each organization in which I’m active, or on whose board I sit, so that I can easily track those details.)
• Speaking. (I keep one folder for everything related to upcoming speaking gigs—directions, details, to-brings, my Amtrak Acela reservations, etc.)

Everyone once in a while I need to create a temporary folder for something else—a new project,  a party big enough to need to track invitations and rsvps, a conference I’m planning– but for the most part, this system of folders keeps everything pretty organized.

I’m careful to always keep my inboxes close to empty, and I schedule time each day to go through my Action and Waiting For folders to make sure I’m keeping up with all my responsibilities.  (If I notice the same undone item cropping up again and again in my Action folder, sometimes I move it into my Someday folder—which is a great guilt alleviator.)

Sounds simple, but I’m now accomplishing more than double what I was getting done before.  I hope it works for some of you, too.

Fern Reiss, CEO of PublishingGame.com/Expertizing.com, is the author of The Publishing Game books.  Find out how to get more media attention for your book and business by signing up for her complimentary monthly email newsletter at http://www.PublishingGame.com/signup.htm

Last 5 posts by Fern Reiss

• Publicize Your Novel - April 17th, 2008
• 19 Ways to Publicize Your Book - March 24th, 2008
• Publicize Via Social Networks - February 11th, 2008
• Get More Publicity For Your Book and Business - December 5th, 2007
• Sell More Books to Libraries - October 22nd, 2007