A New Year, A New Opportunity, Shattered Glass, and Art

It’s all about perspective. I’ll have to admit that for the past year I haven’t been myself. I’ve allowed the election and external conditions, including the economy color my view and make most of 2012 miserable. Add to that the fact that I had an unusual amount of health issues that further weighted down my spirit and well, I’m just happy to see 2013 roll around. I’m not a pessimistic person. I'm an optimistic one, and quite frankly, I'm tired of being down. I don’t like and don’t encourage anyone to dwell on it. We all have ups and downs, comfort zones and issues that we’d rather not have to deal with. The fact is, at least in my case, I don’t deal with anything well, when I’m down in the dumps and feeling blue. So one of my resolutions this year is to snap out of the funk and let my naturally jovial and motivated self out of the box this year. So if you’ve been waiting for someone to give you an excuse to slough off all those dreary feelings, I’m just the gal to do it. Join me this year and let us all rise above the problems and search for their solutions. Join me in setting goals and celebrating accomplishments. Join me and let us share our enthusiasm for life until it spreads like a YouTube video! Join me in thanking God for the Blessings he gives us everyday and join me as I shout from the rooftop (figuratively speaking, ya know I’m terrified of heights) that the only way we’ll be held down is if we allow ourselves to be. Our associate pastor, spoke last night on turning shattered glass into beautiful art. He shared a story about stained glass, a church and an artisan. It put so many things into perspective. Sometimes it is out of the broken pieces that we can build the most magnificent things. So if your life has been shattered recently and made an unexpected turn, whether personally or financially go quickly and examine the shards. You will be surprised that among them; you will find new beginnings, and I believe that you can find a way to turn those shards into a work of art. Happy New Year! May the coming year be a blessed one for each of you and your families. Jumping forward into a Happy New Year, Tammie

Get your Chance in the Spotlight!!!!

 If you have read the 8 Hours to Jump Start Your Career (book one) and would be interested I will be spotlighting authors and their experience. If you feel like the book was helpful and you have a story you could share you will be spotlighted in a very nice way with photos and links to your books. Can you say FREE advertising.  Please email me asap to be one of the first authors featured.
tammiecgibbs@yahoo.com  Please put AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT in the subject line.

A new look is on the horizon

For those of you who visit often you'll notice that we're doing a little remodeling of the blog/site.  There are many exciting changes coming. Stay tuned.

Magic Beans, Willpower and a Smidge of Motivation

Welcome back! Yesterday I discussed blogs and today I'm going to discuss Magic Beans and Motivation... Yes. I can be a little crazy, but for the most part, I've been blessed through the years and given a certain knack for dreaming up wild ideas and actually implementing them.

What better subject for an author who got her start years ago when she launched a Balloon Business just two weeks after her high-school graduation?  Magic Beans.  What are they and where can an author get them? Did you even know you need them?

Well, this blog post is about the unseen initiative that drives us toward any goal and whether or not you have what it takes to persevere and be the success that you were meant to be. 

Many of my fellow authors will be appalled by what I'm about to say, but the reality is that whether or not we like it or not. It's true.  Some call the phenomena "dumb luck."   Maybe, it is, to a degree.
You don't have to be the most talented author on the planet to become a successful author.  In fact, many of the most successful falls surprisingly short when it comes to the opinions of their peers. 

I'll shock you again when I say, "so what"! I'll try to explain.  When it comes to measuring another author's ability, we all would do well to recognize that the way we look at another author's work, and the way readers do is completely different.  It's subjective.  It's like a person's decorating choices and whether they adorn their lawn with pink flamingos or a work of modern art.  People are different, and they like different things. 

Do we as creatives do the world an injustice when we protest the writing ability of others and become bitter when people we deem unworthy achieve success?  I think we do because regardless of our opinion of our own ability, someone isn't going to like us or our work, and they are bound to let us know using the review system.

So, that being said it's important to identify these "Magic Beans" that every author needs to grab the spotlight of success for themselves.  There are two things that precede any person's success.

-Either they believed in themselves or someone else did! 

With just a smidge of self-motivation and determination any number of shortfalls can be overcome.  We can change how our covers look. We can edit a bad manuscript into a better one, but what we cannot do is succeed without the motivation to do so.

I would ask you now. Do you have what it takes?  Are you playing at the business of being an author? Or, do you truly believe in what you are doing and your ability to do it better every single time you put your fingers to the keyboard? 

I'm not famous, but I'm proud of the accomplishments I've made so far because I know that I do everything I can each and every day to assure success. 

Recognize today the success you already are and set those goals for the success you want to achieve.  Today's the day to wake up your will power and motivate yourself to create your own Magic Beans!!!  YOU are the secret ingredient because no one else can write the way you do!

I'd love to hear from you. Please comment and share this blog post any, and everywhere you can.

Tammie

To BLOG or Not to BLOG that is the Question!

Like you, I belong to a few writers groups online and one of the most asked questions lately has been "Should I have a blog?" 

For those of you who have read my book you already know the answer, but for those who haven't I'll try to explain the why behind the resounding "yes you should."

My background is in offline marketing and advertising and any person in that line of work worth their salt will tell you that it's hard to get anything for FREE, but if you can, you should use it.  For now, blog platforms are FREE. This may not be the case forever, but for now why not take advantage of the medium to further your marketing reach and help get both, you and your books out there? 

The biggest problem I see with authors and blogs is the fact that they don't plan how they will use the platform and instead judge the results by an arbitrary set of values.

I use my blog as a billboard. It's there to catch the occasional passerby, and I try to make sure that there is enough information on myself and my books to be informative when someone drops by.  I also use my blog as a means to an end. If you don't have a blog, you are virtually eliminating several additional methods of marketing yourself without even realizing you have done it.

What? Because I have a blog, I can participate in several things that I cannot if I only have a website. 

Book Tours: It's hard to participate in book tours, and blog hops without a blog. While there are paid versions you can easily set up tours and hops on your own working with fellow authors to cross-promote each other's books.

Articles: Using a blog you can easily draw attention to your blog and therefore, a static advertisement for you as an author by sharing the posts via Twitter and Facebook.  This is wonderful when your articles become viral with many authors sharing them across the various platforms.

If you're creative, you can come up with lots of ways to use a blog, but be careful not to miss the point of a blog.  A blog is a form of communication, and communication can also be static.  When you create a blog, it creates one more place that readers MIGHT find you. Don't be overly concerned if you blog isn't getting thousands of hits a month. It doesn't have to.  It's a tool and right now you can use it for FREE. 

If you have thoughts on blogging you'd like to share I'd love to hear your viewpoint. Please feel free to share.

The Books Debut: Behind the Book: 8 Hours to Jump Start Your Career...

The Books Debut: Behind the Book: 8 Hours to Jump Start Your Career...: BEHIND THE BOOK With a million things to do why in the world would an author spend valuable time out of their own writing to try to in...

Book Marketing Requires Doing Something...

It's often been said that you cannot continue doing the
same things and expect a different result.

Authors are no different than most people.  They want the "overnight" success story, but they fail to realize that most of those overnight successes took a lot longer to make it to where they are.  This article is about being realistic.  I know. We are authors and most of us in some form or fashion tinkers in the world of fantasy.

When it comes to marketing our books, it's time we made the distinction between fantasy and reality. It's ok dry your eyes. It doesn't have to be that bad. In fact, it could be even better than your fantasy. 

What? Have I lost my mind?  No. The reality is that while we all fantasize about becoming a million dollar seller, nothing compares to the first time you realize as an author that someone is buying your books and that you might actually be a real author afterall. What about the first five-star review you received, didn't it give you chills?

Reality is knowing that unless we do something, we'll never get where we want to be and it all starts with having a plan.  It doesn't matter what form your plan comes in, but sooner, or later you have to devote yourself enough to your success that you are willing to give "reality" it's due.  Reality is like an "entity."  I know you've probably heard sayings that refer to "the school of hard knocks," "paying your dues and any number of variations.  For our purposes, "reality" demands a bit of attention.

The truth is whether you are traditionally or non-traditionally published you still have to be willing to "pay your dues" and this case that requires acknowledging that you need to devote a few hours to planning.

Indie and self-published authors tend to be "seat of the pantsers" and that's exactly why you need to do this now. Don't wait, don't put it off. Sit down with a pad and paper and:
Set a Goal for the rest of the year.  This means set a goal for how many books you want to have out and how many over-all  books you'd like to be selling on average.
Set a Goal for next month. Since it's impossible to know when you'll be reading this you might as well set your goal for the next full month. Monthly goals are different and much more active. They are also the goals that will help you reach your end of year goals.
           Some suggestions for monthly goals:
             -A set number of review requests you will send out.
             -A set number of blog interviews you will schedule to do.
             -A set number of blog posts you'll write for your PR/Bank.
            -A set number of info and fresh promo tweets you'll write for your rotation.
            -A set number of new places to promote your books for free that you will find.

Set a Weekly Goal.  Weekly goals should consist of the above suggestions worked out into manageable tasks. 

Lifestyle goals are another area that you should allocate some time for planning.  Lifestyle goals are those big goals like "sell enough books to buy a car" or "sell enough books to write full time".  My suggestion is to use visual goals setting with this type goal.  If you have an office or writing room decorate it with visual images that you will associate with reaching your particular goal.  Surround yourself with motivational posters that make you feel good. 

The first step that you can take to assure a successful marketing campaign has more to do with you personally than it does with where to advertise or what group to join.  If your attitude is not right, you could be sabotaging all of your efforts.  You can market without being a pest and reach your goals, but nothing is going to happen until you decide to do something and then do it...

If you haven't already got a copy of the first book in the 8 Hour Series I hope you will give it consideration.