I’ve got two careers now – I’m an active duty military officer, and I’m also an author.<\/p>\n
I really enjoy writing, and\u00a0do it at\u00a0every opportunity:\u00a0during lunch, after work, while waiting for things, while standing in line for\u00a0some amusement park ride, etc.\u00a0In fact, I\u00a0have to force myself to NOT do it and sometimes focus in things like my husband and children, and reading, and sometimes watching TV. After having little sales success with a PR firm I hired to help me market my last book, RETRIBUTION, I decided to take matters into my own hands\u00a0and begin an aggressive marketing push on my own.<\/p>\n
Of course, I have no idea how to do this. I’d really rather be writing. But I sucked it up and put together a little checklist – because that’s what we do in the military – of marketing steps\u00a0based on\u00a0some notes I took at a writing conference last year and tips I gleaned off the Internet. I looked at this checklist, then I opened my work-in-progress\u00a0manuscript and said hello to the\u00a0characters waiting impatiently for me to continue my story, then I\u00a0gritted my\u00a0teeth and closed my manuscript, mentally kicked myself in the ass, and got to work doing something I really didn’t want to do.<\/p>\n
Because nobody likes marketing. Except maybe the people who make a living off it, whatever. No author likes marketing. But after working my day job, I drag myself back to my little dorm room on the camp I’m currently in, and use the remaining couple hours of the day to plink away at my list. Here’s a link to my current draft of the list, which is a work in progress, for anyone who’s interested:<\/p>\n
And there you go. It’s just that easy. I’m being facetious.<\/p>\n
What I really want is not an avalanche of book sales (though I’m not gonna lie, that would be nice), but a readership base I can share my stories with. But in order to make that happen, I need to make people aware<\/em> of my books first, and that’s the point of marketing. So here’s hoping it’s worth the effort!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve got two careers now – I’m an active duty military officer, and I’m also an author. I really enjoy writing, and\u00a0do it at\u00a0every opportunity:\u00a0during lunch, after work, while waiting for things, while standing in line for\u00a0some amusement park ride, etc.\u00a0In fact, I\u00a0have to force myself to NOT do it and sometimes focus in things … <\/p>\n