Month: March 2016

I joke that I’ve made
just about every mistake
a writer can make
and anything that can go wrong
HAS gone wrong.
One publisher of 18 best selling stories
hasn’t paid me in years
and likely won’t ever pay me.
I’ve had big releases
on days tragedies happened.
Had booksellers pull books mistakenly
in the middle of a huge promo.
You name it.
I’ve dealt with it.

And I’ve survived.
My sales today
are better than they were yesterday.

Setbacks happen in every business.
We need to learn how to cope
with them.

Bruna Martinuzzi
shares

“Perhaps one of the best ways
to cope with a setback in business
can be to remind yourself
of your “why.”
Reconnect with your reasons
for doing what you do.
Don’t forget the meaning
behind all your efforts.
Remind yourself of where you’ve been,
what you’ve achieved so far,
and keep your eye on the vision
you created for yourself.
What got you out of bed
in the morning
raring to go?
Don’t lose sight of this.”

The only person or thing
that can stop you
is you.
Expect setbacks.
Learn how to deal with them.
View them as business lessons
and move on.

One of my loved ones
is dealing with depression.
I didn’t know what to do,
how to help him.
I felt embarrassed to ask for help.
I thought, since I loved him,
I should know how to cheer him up.

But I swallowed my pride
and asked.

Only to find out
that many of my friends
are dealing with the same issue
(loved ones suffering from depression).
Some of my friends
were searching for solutions.
Others had found a solution
and shared these with me.

This is true of
almost every problem in our lives,
personal or business or other.

Someone you know,
right now,
is struggling with the same problem
you are.
It might be in a different industry
or a different area of her life
or not exactly the same
in some other way.
But she is searching
for the same sort of solution,
even if that solution
is simply a person to talk to.

I suspect there’s also
someone you know
who has a solution,
maybe not the right one
for you,
maybe not the perfect solution,
but she has ONE solution.

You are not alone.
You don’t have to deal
with your problems alone.
Ask for help.

In the March/April
The Costco Connection,
Drew Scott,
from the very successful show
Property Brothers,
shares

“The thing is,
you can’t phone it in.
If you love what you do
and you love the people
you work with,
it shows.
And that’s why
we take the job seriously
–now ourselves.”

I have fun at ‘the job’
but I take it very seriously.
I invest the time.
I pay attention to quality.
I put my all into every product.

There are so many products
in EVERY market.
We can’t phone it in.
We have to give every customer
our everything.

One of the best ways
to sell more books/other products
on Amazon/an online reseller
is to fit into a smaller category,
a category where your product
can be seen by your target readership/customer.

For example:
You’re writing a billionaire romance
like Fifty Shades Of Grey.

Where do you categorize/shelf
this story/product?

There’s no billionaire category/shelf.
The contemporary romance category/shelf
has hundreds of thousands,
perhaps millions of listings.
A billionaire romance gets lost.

And if your readers/prospects can’t find
your story at Amazon/the reseller,
every sale you make
is because you led the prospect
directly there.
That’s inefficient,
especially for a small author/company.

If you’re counting on a reseller’s help
to sell your product,
your product has to fit
somewhere on their shelves,
somewhere your product
can be seen.

Take that into consideration
when you design your product.

One thing writers know
a lot about is
rejection.
Stories are rejected by
agents, editors, publishers,
reviewers, bloggers, readers.

Our rejections are often public.
Everyone can see
the 1 star reviews
I receive on
my stories.
They’re posted on Amazon
right on the listing.

New writers worry
about rejection.
They might self-edit their stories,
trying not to be rejected.

Experienced writers embrace it.
We’re creating change.
Change isn’t for everyone.
That X reader doesn’t like a story
means a whole lot of nothing.
Plenty of other readers will like it.

You should embrace rejection also.
You’re every bit as unique
as one of my stories.
You can’t expect to be everyone’s taste.

Seth Godin
shares

“Short version: You got rejected.
The words and the tone
of the rejection
aren’t going to tell you much,
and every moment
you spend dissecting them
is a way to hide
from the real work
of making something
that will resonate tomorrow.”

Expect rejection.
Embrace it.