Today I have for you a long reflection and self-coaching example about marketing my fiction...
I know what to do but why aren’t I doing it?
I feel overwhelmed, upset, distracted, sad. Frustrated.
I’m a small publisher. Why am I not acting like one?
Stomping around, gnashing my teeth, growling like an ogre. Yep, I’m having a tantrum.
After I blow off some steam and come back to center. I feel better. Now what?
I give myself a pep talk. Here we go. ⇒ I have skills. I have experience. I have passion and enthusiasm and readers who like my stuff.
So what can I do right now? Yep, right this second.
I can celebrate my wins and be grateful for the actions I have taken. I can count my blessings and acknowledge my wins.
- I did a successful Kickstarter in March to launch the fourth book in the series.
- I got some lovely reviews for the book.
- I shipped books to my supporters and backers.
- I’m excited about the next book.
- I’m editing a short story that goes between the book that is finished and published and the book that is yet to be written. So I’m looking forward to movement there.
- I’m in communication with my readers by sending out a weekly newsletter.
- I share my interests and passions on social media channels in a haphazard way.
- I have a so-so author website that needs updating and cleaning up. It looks a bit like a garage sale, full of things that look valuable but may be in the wrong home.
OK. Now I’m getting into what’s not working. While listing all those things is useful for awareness, it’s not an action plan.
I hate not having an action plan, being so ungrounded.
I know how to get into action. I know how to do stuff.
So why do I still feel frustrated?
What do I truly yearn for?
I yearn for connection with my readers. I yearn to be in dialogue with my peers about the subjects that fire me up and are the source of the next books in the series. I yearn for satisfaction and seeing my books sell. I yearn for connection.
I know from past experience that having a clear plan of action that’s doable, that I can easily do every week, my definition of sustainable, is what would make me happy.
There is so much uncertainty in the world and in the life as a creative.
So much is in flux (and will continue to be for the foreseeable future), so I need an easy way to maintain regular commitments that I am joyful about doing.
I've been sending a weekly newsletter, and that has made me happy, but it still feels ungrounded and unfocused.
I need more structure.
For me that structure comes in the form of looking into the future for the next 2 to 3 months and deciding when precisely I will work on my weekly author newsletter, and what elements I will write about so I have a menu of topics to choose from.
I also want to be clear on what outcomes will let me know that sending my author newsletter is a success.
Your Author Newsletter
For the past month or so I have been talking about the importance of having an author newsletter.
Even as an unpublished author you can get started on this process.
And today I have shared a little bit about the process of a working author.
My main complaint to myself:
I feel like I haven’t taken my marketing seriously in this ongoing way. Doing a Kickstarter -- you could say -- shows the seriousness of my marketing, but actually it was my first trial, the first time I did a Kickstarter ever.
It feels like all the marketing I do as an author is trial and error.
There is never a sense of certainty around succeeding. Because of this I feel like a novice. But I’m not.
If there’s one thing I know that separates the amateurs from the professionals is that professionals don’t give up. Professionals give it their all. A professional writer, I call myself a working writer, keeps trying new things.
Over a decade ago when the self publishing industry was taking off for fiction writers, I interviewed two authors about the secret of their six-figure income success. Article link here. Do you know what they told me?
So if I feel like a novice even after 13 novels published, if I feel like a novice because I don’t have a firm knowledge of all the books I’ve sold, if I feel uncertain and don’t really know what I’m doing, even though I do know what I’m doing, that’s all okay.
This pep talk is for me as much as it is for you.
So what if we don’t know what we’re doing?
So what if we don’t have it all figured out?
So what if I am not in command of my numbers and can’t tell you what my book sales are specifically?
So what if I feel ungrounded right now about my email newsletter marketing plan?
So what?
Those are not reasons to give up.
They are just opportunities to create solutions for.
If there's one thing I am taking away from sharing this with you, it is a renewed sense of not giving up. Plus awareness that I am in a messy phase of my fiction book marketing. That I am in an important phase of creativity where nothing feels grounded and that’s only partly true.
The creative process is messy. That applies to book marketing also.
If I am truly a creative entrepreneur, which I claim I am, then every aspect of my business as an author, as an independent publisher, will at times look extremely messy. Because that is an important phase of the creative process.
Intellectually I know that. Yet emotionally I feel all kinds of ungrounded and that triggers mild anxiety and panic.
You know what I mean?
But again those are not good reasons to leave the playing field altogether, if I may switch metaphors.
I want to stay in the game of being an independent publisher of my own fiction.
And if my cards line up right I may become a publisher of other people's work. I’m in the research phase for that :-) Meaning I want it, but I need to lay the foundational work before I’m sure that it’s the right direction for me. You heard it here first! Well, except for all the people I’ve been brainstorming the idea with. lol
Staying the Course
All this to say -- notice how you are staying the course.
Notice how you have probably been staying the course for quite some time.
List your accomplishments and successes in all the ways you have been staying the course. No matter how small.
I was reminded this week of a piece of wisdom that I share with my students and clients, which is if we don’t take time to celebrate each of our wins -- no matter how small; no matter how large -- how can our system recognize success that we desire when it comes our way?
I took some time this week to really celebrate with Ezra a milestone that he experienced and a milestone that I experienced. A nice dinner and a movie at home.
We took the time to treat each other with the sweetness that we each love, both in food and kisses. It was good for my system.
Maybe I will institute a weekly celebratory dinner, to just acknowledge openly all my wins with him and together and separately.
How about you? Do you have rituals around celebrating and gratitude for the little things in life?
It’s easy to pay lip service to gratitude. It’s also easy to focus on all that is bad in our lives and in the world.
But if we don’t make time to celebrate the wins both large and small, then we are not conditioning ourselves for more goodness.
Perhaps it’s controversial, perhaps it’s revolutionary, it’s time to celebrate life, especially when things are so tough.
Each one of us creates ripples in the waves of life.
Each one of us has impacts large and small, seen and unseen.
We can change how we show up in the world with a decision.
And it all starts with compassion. Compassion for yourself.
Even if your room was messy, I’m guessing your parents still loved you. Even though you didn’t get all the answers right on the test, you’re still a worthy human being. Even though you didn’t get the book sales you wanted this week, this month, or this year, you’re still a worthy human being.
It all starts with being supportive to yourself. Then the world around you can join in that support.
That is my reflection of the week, dictated while I was walking home on a very warm spring day in Oakland, California, hearing all the happy twittering birds, smiling at the dogs walking their owners, smelling the pungent wide open roses at the Oakland Rose garden, feeling my muscles burn as I walked uphill to my apartment.
Blessings on your path. | 
