Promotions Progress

tyunglebower ♦ May 11, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

For the last few months, I have designated Thursdays as “Marketing Thursdays.” While I haven’t yet done more actual marketing on Thursdays, I have dedicated that day to familiarizing myself with new options to promote my work, and by extension, myself as an author. I’ve mentioned this a few times before.

I’m happy to report that the outline of an actual marketing/promotional plan and budget for my upcoming novel, The Beacons I See is solidifying. Such plans must be fluid and of course will ebb and flow with my needs, but the basics are nearly set.

Now, if I were to share with you the details of that developing plan, you’d probably think you were missing a page of my blog somehow, if you have any experience with marketing. It wouldn’t seem ambitious to people in the know on such matters. Yet for me, who has never investigated or invested in such options before to such an extent, it feels like I’m taking steps far beyond baby size.

It’s nerve wracking, I won’t lie. It may always be so to an extent. Yet as with self publishing I imagine that with time it will get easier. Familiarity alone is a powerful learning tool.

The key to success is not trying to do what so many others are doing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people attempt to start building something from the top floor down. I don’t only mean authors, either. Businesses. Arts projects. Social events. Clubs. We sometimes fall so much in love with the bigness of possibilities, that we forget the wisdom of starting modestly.

Truth be told, modest beginnings may not be enough for most people, but I would rather build a brick at a time like a mason. What I have done for my previous books hasn’t been enough to achieve all of the goals I wanted for them, so I have had to add more bricks to the wall of this marketing building. Yet a ton of bricks does nothing if it’s just dropped from an airplane. (Other than make a mess.)

You might not be an indie author, but if you take anything away from this somewhat vague update, remember that the big stuff can always be pursued in the future. You can learn to juggle the ten thousand things if that is your ambition. It’s a shot to the foot in most cases, though, if your entire plan is, “to hell with the comfort zone, and full speed ahead with everything I could possibly imagine!” That’s the popular approach of this generation, I think. Fortunately, I’ve never had to worry about being popular.