Milestones and Marketing

I have passed a milestone as an author—>I got my first royalty payment for Carico Trails. It shows that I actually sold a few books. The numbers affirm my assertion that I am lousy at marketing or at least avoid it far too effectively.

I am inspired by the number of people who took a chance on an unknown even if they did so through free offers. Personally I love finding an interesting book for free on Kindle. I greatly appreciate the first person who took the time to post a comment. I’d love to see more. But I have to quit hoping for that kind of advertising and put some work into it myself.

Did you know there is a thing called an elevator pitch? All about your book in two sentences. Two sentences! Get that written and I will know what to say when someone says, “What’s it about?”

I have read that an author should have a “platform” on the web including a blog, Facebook fan page, Twitter account, author page on Amazon and probably a dozen other venues if I looked a little. I’d like to know how anyone keeps fresh content on their platform and still finds time to write.

I have to admit that I am intimidated by most social media. After all, it’s social. It’s about conversation and sharing with people. These are things I have never been good at. I’d rather go visit my good friends on Carico. But, if I want others to meet those friends, I need to introduce them. So I guess I had better find time to confront some old challenges and become more social. Meanwhile, the next book is only to Chapter 5 so you’ll have to wait a while for it.

Check back later and see how many planks I have added to my platform.