Welcome back everyone! I'm glad to see you back here and hope the week is treating you pleasantly. So far my day is a tired one, and unless caffeine is far more magical than I remember, I don't see that changing much. Either way I have a lot of work to do, so hopefully that will keep me excited and motivated throughout the day.
My current project is part of what I'm going to bring up today actually. As a self-published author the hardest thing in the world is to get your book to where people can see it. Getting to to where they can buy it is easy, especially if where you publish from distributes pretty much everywhere. The problem comes when you need to let people know that they can even look for it. Advertising is hard, possibly expensive (never again...) and a lot of the time, yields very small results. It can be the part of self-publishing that makes getting motivated very difficult. However, that doesn't mean there isn't light at the end of the tunnel!
I've talked before about how social networking makes getting the information out to people a lot easier than it was say....10 years ago. It's still true, and for those who follow me on Facebook and Twitter will know that I am irritating when it comes to spamming that link out to everyone. The thing is there is a reason for it; new followers might not necessarily see older posts. Sure they have the ability to look back and see what those were, but when you start following someone, do you really go back and look at each and every thing they've ever posted on the Internet ever? No...unless you're a stalker, in which case...creepy. The other reason is that the new followers will have new and different people following them. That is an entire audience that you haven't reached out to and unless you keep presenting the information you'll never get to.
Finding a new audience is where things are also difficult. In a 'Real World' setting like a workplace environment you will be surrounded by people who are interested in what you're doing at your desk for as long as they are standing next to it. This isn't to say there aren't some who are genuinely curious and want to know everything about you and what you're doing. The important thing is to identify who those people are, because frankly you don't want to irritate the crap out of someone who is just by your desk because they need to get some paper. If there are people who are truly interested they will keep coming back even if they don't need anything. These are the ones you tell everything to and you ask/beg them to tell others. Word of mouth is a wonderful tool and just like on the Internet is extremely useful in real life.
Which brings me to what I was saying previously. Branching out into the other mediums might actually be helpful, you just need to work it in such a way that you can do it. For instance at my work we have a craft fair coming up. We've had it before, and I honestly have no idea how frequent they are, but I have been (strongly) told to participate in it. This is a strange concept to me, as I had no idea that anything I did that was 'crafty' would be something people would decide they should pay money for. Anyway, after much deliberation and getting some suggestions from "totally unbiased parties" I have decided to try and get some things ready for it. Right now the plan is to make some cards and have them set up both individually and by sets, and on the back have information about where to go to start reading my book series with 'The Light Rises'. If I manage to get this done, it will allow me to use an entirely different medium to reach an audience I wouldn't have even considered an option previously. You can even see the picture one here and I apologize for the picture quality I will upload a better one later and maybe even make it so prints are available! This is something that we all have a potential to do, you just need to figure out the best way to mix and match everything.
I know getting the information out to the masses is hard, and sometimes feels so futile you can to flip all the tables and just go to sleep. I really do (Facebook, your advertising sucks, btw) but that has never stopped me from trying and it shouldn't stop you either. Your work is important, it may seem like it's just important to you, but that's just because you haven't found the right person to read it yet. When you do then things will explode into so much awesome you won't know what to do with yourself. Just be patient and keep going. It'll all work out.
Thanks so much for stopping by today. I'll be back on Friday and hopefully will be all bright-eyed and ready to face the day! I hope the rest of the week sees you well, I'm going to get back to writing/editing/drawing everything ever!
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