Category: New Business Development

A client k reader
asked me
why I quoted
Hillary Clinton
yesterday.
She failed in her bid
for the US Presidency.

I realize
that some people
believe
one failure
erases
all of a person’s
other achievements.

But we are business builders.
We know failure
is part of success
and we know
we will continue to fail
AFTER we are successful.

Failure doesn’t stop.
Especially if
we continue
to press forward,
to reach for new goals,
to grow as business builders.

Failure doesn’t diminish
your other accomplishments.

Continue to push forward.

You would think,
at the tail end
of 2020,
all of the big firsts
for women
would have
already been accomplished.

But they haven’t been.
There hasn’t yet,
for example,
been a female President
of the United States.

In the Romance Industry,
an industry dominated
by women,
there are still firsts
to accomplish also.

A female romance writer
has never won
a Nobel Prize
for Literature,
for example.

(And yes,
some romance novels
ARE worthy of that award.
Yet they aren’t even considered
for it.)

Seeking to be the first
is a great goal.

But as Hillary Clinton
shares,

“As Kamala Harris
says,
it’s not good enough
to be the first.
You have to make sure
you are not the last.”

I quoted Hillary Clinton,
rather than Kamala Harris,
because this is a great example
of how we ensure
firsts are not lasts.

We give the next generation,
the next woman
a hand up.
We quote them.
We mention them.
We increase their credibility
and others’ awareness
of them.

A legacy matters more
when others care
about that legacy.

Ensuring we are not
the last
does that.

If you’re able,
give the next generation
a boost.

Allow them to accomplish more
by volunteering
your shoulders
for them to stand on.

I give my cover designer
and my editor
a year end bonus.

If I do well,
I believe,
as part of my team,
they should do well also.

The challenge is…
the revenue from
the writing business
fluctuates
…greatly.

Last year was a good year.
This year hasn’t been
as good a year.

How do I manage that?

I waited for a few good years
before I started paying bonuses.
I set that money aside
so I could use it,
if I needed it,
for future bonuses.

I started with bonuses
I could easily pay.
Again, I set a little extra aside
every year
in case my revenue
dramatically dropped.

I don’t increase this amount
until I have experienced
two or more years
of being able
to easily distribute
the increased bonus.

Most people believe
they will receive,
at the minimum,
the same bonus
as they had received
the previous year.

Many people will COUNT
on that happening.
They will have already allocated
those funds
to paying their bills.

You do NOT want
to decrease bonuses.
EVER.
It will cause hardship
and it will create uncertainty
around your business’ financial situation.

If a disaster strikes
and you do have to decrease
or eliminate
bonuses,
give your employees/partners
as much notice as possible
about this.

Be conservative
with the bonuses
but definitely consider
sharing some of the wealth.

Success is better
enjoyed
with others.

Christmas Day
is a HUGE promo day
for Romance Writers.

Many readers
are receiving gift cards
for bookstores today
and they are eager
to spend them.

It is also
a HUGE support day.

Too many readers
have no one to spend
the day with.

They often reach out
to their favorite writers,
usually with non-urgent,
sometimes trivial-seeming questions
that are truly anything
BUT trivial.
A reply from that writer,
from me could save
a life today.

My loved ones,
however,
also want time
with me.
That’s a great challenge
to have.

What I do
is…
I explain the situation
to loved ones.

I explain that is
it is the busiest promo day
of the year,
that some readers
need contact with me
and why.

Most loved ones
understand.

I set up as much
as I can
before today.
I schedule posts,
newsletter placements,
other promo
in advance.

I also spend
excess time
with loved ones
in advance.

Christmas Eve
has become a huge celebration
for me.

I called far away
and in quarantine loved ones
for hours
in the days
leading up to Christmas.

I usually call them again
on Christmas
but those are super short
I-was-thinking-of-you
calls.

I send them cards
and letters
so they have my words
to read
whenever they want
that contact with me.

On Christmas Day,
I forgo sleep,
waking up early
to work,
to promote,
to answer emails
from readers,
to reach out to readers
I know are alone.

I will sneak away
during the day
to work
but when I’m present
with loved ones,
I try to be completely present.
I don’t look at the phone.
I am there and listening.

Then whenever the work rush
slows down,
I’ll, again, spend quality time
with my loved ones.

New Year’s Eve
has become a bigger celebration
in my household
since I became a full-time writer.

It is a normal day
for Romance Novel sales
but it has become a special day
for me and my loved ones.

We CAN do both
– complete the tasks
our businesses need
AND
ensure our loved ones
feel loved.

It requires some planning
but we CAN do this.

I have never met someone
who didn’t hold a belief.

Even the most adamant so-called non-believer,
the person who claims
she bases everything in science,
holds a belief
…in science.

Beliefs can be healthy.
They can be essential
to happiness,
to strong mental health.
Beliefs are often our ways
of making sense
in a world
that isn’t always logical.

They give us peace.

But they CAN
also cause problems
for us and for loved ones.

Seth Godin
shares

“If your beliefs are
getting in the way
of your work,
of your health
or the health of those
around you,
or
of your ability to be
a contributing citizen,
it might be worth examining
why you have them
and how they got there.”

A belief, for example, that
drinking water at room temperature
makes a person live longer
isn’t hurting anyone
and MIGHT help
the belief holder
emotionally and physically.

A belief that EVERYONE
should drink water at room temperature,
in contrast,
can lead to unhappiness
for the belief holder
and for many people around her.

Question the beliefs
that aren’t working for you
and for your loved ones.

Embrace your healthy beliefs.

In the Romance Writing business,
many writers put
all of their focus
on release day.

The day after release day,
they are usually disappointed
because their book
didn’t ‘breakout.’

I’ve had the good fortune
to have breakout hits.

NONE of them
broke out
on release day.

Their release days
were ‘normal’
i.e. fairly disappointing.

When did they break out?

After weeks or months
of hard promoting
and gradual readership
(customer)
building.

Seth Godin
shares

“Not everyone goes first.
Almost no one does.
That’s how our culture changes
–when the few early adopters
tell the others.
And so each of us
has to persist
and continue to show up
in the marketplace,
doing the work
and earning the trust
of people who don’t
get a thrill out of
going first.

People don’t show up
when you launch.

They show up
when they’re ready.”

Launch day is unlikely
to be breakout day.

Don’t give up on
a product/service
immediately after
launch day.

I often describe
my stories, my scenes,
my characters
as being ‘magical.’

THAT is what
I’m truly selling
– magic.

I’m promising readers
a special experience.

I’m telling them
I’ll suck them into a story,
build a world they can
fully experience
through a collection
of letters on a page.

THAT is magic.

What you’re selling
is likely magic also.

Seth Godin
shares

“Maybe we’d be better off
saying,
“I need to get back to
making magic.”
Because that’s what
we’d actually like
to be getting paid
to create.”

Create some magic
today!

When I was young
and not eating every day,
I crafted a definition
of what was honorable,
what was ethical,
what was right.

I was desperate
for cash
yet I set lines
I wouldn’t ever cross.

I knew if I crossed those lines,
I would no longer
have pride in myself.
I would no longer
be me.

I was cynical, however,
even at that young age.
I’d seen a bit
of the bad side of the world.

I was well aware
others would happily
jump over those lines.
My definition of honor,
of right and wrong
wasn’t theirs
and it was dangerous
to assume it was theirs.

When you do business,
keep true to yourself.
Retain and protect
your honor.

But
don’t ever assume
others will act honorably.

Get a legal contract.
Put all critical agreements
in writing.
Don’t tie your business’ success
on someone else’s code of ethics.

I didn’t like
the Harry Potter books.

Yes, I heard
that collective gasp.

(I rarely talk about this
because doing so
would dampen
the joy
of others
surrounding these books
and that serves
no purpose.)

To be a reader,
a writer,
and not like Harry Potter
is to be the exception.

But not liking
the Harry Potter books
doesn’t mean
I don’t know about them.
It doesn’t mean
I don’t appreciate
WHY they were so popular
and
the impacts these books
had on the entire
publishing industry
and
on reader expectations.

Seth Godin
shares

“…you don’t have to
like something
to understand why
someone else thought
it was important.

To move the culture forward,
we need to have
the empathy
to imagine
what others are seeing,
liking and talking about.”

You don’t have
to like something
to learn from it,
to appreciate it.

And if you’re around
others
who love that
not harmful something
you don’t like,
do the world a favor
and stay quiet.

Listen.
Learn.
Apply those lessons,
if you can,
to your own creations.

Perfect is the enemy
of good fiction writing.

Why?

Because emotion,
not perfection,
is the goal of great fiction writing
and emotion is raw.
It has rough edges.
Its structure is a little…off,
which throws the reader
a little off,
allowing her to feel.

Revising all of the emotion
out of a scene
isn’t merely possible.
It is practically a cliche
in writing.

If this is true
in writing,
where every word counts,
it is definitely true
in other industries.

Perfect also isn’t possible.

As Seth Godin
shares

“It’s foolish to wait
until you’ve made
something that’s perfect,
because you never will.
The alternative is
to continue to move
toward your imaginary ideal,
shipping as you iterate.”

Perfection isn’t the goal
and it can prevent us
from reaching our goals.

Keep your eye
on what you truly
want to achieve.