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Showing posts from October, 2017

The Author Has Many Roles in Today's Market

Sales and marketing are not always an author’s strongest trait. As authors we focus on the writing, creating worlds and characters to tell a story. With the ever changing world of book publishing, these days authors have to fill many roles, walk in many shoes, including sales and marketing if we have any hope of our books being seen and making sales. Sales and marketing is not my strongest trait. In fact, it’s my weakest trait. I believe in the books I write but trying to sell them to the public is difficult. I would like to blame it on my Minnesota upbringing—you know, the nicest state in the Union—but it might not be just that. It just isn’t easy to do what I feel is pushing myself on others. I publish a book and I feel invisible. It gets buried in the pile of millions of books. Even a week or two after the publish date when I search out my book on Amazon it’s difficult to find. I tell myself, well, I write to write, the passion is in the writing. The truth is, without sale

Our Priorities Define Us

We are defined by our priorities. That’s especially true of characters in a novel. Often it is a current priority that becomes the focus of the storyline. Or sometimes it’s a long term priority that finally gets it chance to take center stage. I often think of how our priorities define us. They are like fingerprints, arranged, correlated, sized, and pushed to the forefront when limitations are imposed upon us. We don’t always even realize our greatest priorities until we lose options and what remains our driving force is clear. For some family is our priority. A lot of people like to think that family is always a priority but stop and think about the last time you’ve called your mom or saw your brother who lives half a country away. Somehow family lost priority to the daily grind of living. Our children are definitely our priority when they are young yet even they can somehow take a backseat to job, travel, or recreational time. Is your priority to pay those monthly bills