Tag: in your corner

elizabeth speaks, Holidays, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Hold On To That Pen–Don’t Put It Down Just Yet!

OR: How NOT To Be Defeated By Christmas

holidays journaling

Look, you actually already know quite a lot about surviving the holidays. For one thing, you’re here, aren’t you? And that means you’ve survived at least one–and let’s be honest, one-year-olds are a bit young to be self-publishing authors, but we support you too, one-year-olds, go get ’em!–holiday season. Very likely, you’ve survived several.

The thing is, those holidays you’ve survived may not have been, how shall we put it … productive? Yes, that’s close enough. “Productive holidays” may even strike you as something of an oxymoron, each being mutually exclusive of the other. But I’m here to assure you that, in fact, the term is not only literally possible but it can be yours–this month!

No, it’s not too late to get ahead of Christmas 2016. It’s easy to be fatalistic upon entering the second week of December, but I find it useful to remember the wise, wise words one of my coworkers has passed down to me from her father: “It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be done.” And a lot of holiday stress? Well, it just goes poof out the window when you apply this idiom to reality. I don’t need to hand-craft every Secret Santa gift or hand-letter every card with fine calligraphy. I don’t need to make a gourmet meal on Christmas where everything comes out of the oven at the same time like it does on America’s Test Kitchen and The Great British Baking Show, and I definitely don’t need to do it all alone, like I have something to prove. But these feelings, this sense of obligation to craft the perfect holiday–they’re real. It’s real. And my friends don’t help at all.

I have friends who are Christmas fiends, bargain-hounds, and holiday maestros. And that’s wonderful, it really is. But in the age of Pinterest and Instagram, those banner apps for the socially and domestically blissful (and skilled), it’s easy to feel like I’m not measuring up–even when I’m racing flat-out just to get the basics covered. I’m 100% certain social media was invented with white picket fences in mind … but most of us don’t have a neatly manicured and curated life! And that’s okay. So the green bean casserole is a bit cooler than the Christmas ham? No big deal! (It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be done.)

The real trick to a stress-free holiday, however, isn’t repeating a mantra to yourself every five minutes when the gingerbread cookies catch fire in the oven or the dog pees on the bearskin rug (true story; don’t ask) you just laundered the day before.

No, the real trick is in not forgetting who you are as an author. It’s easy to put your writing in second place during the holidays–second place to everything. Work is busy in preparation for the holidays, the house is a chaotic wreck, and everyone seems to want something from you, if only emotional support. But you’re an author. This is a vital part of who you are. And it’s not a part you can afford to neglect for an entire month during a time of year when life is literally throwing material–comic, tragic, or just plain emotionally rich–at you every five minutes.

So here’s my suggestion: Start a journal. No, it doesn’t have to be a “Dear Diary” setup if that’s not your speed. It’s definitely not mine. I mean, I may have started there–but when things got really tough a few years ago, I simply started jotting down fragments of overheard conversations, things I was grateful for, and things I was worried about. This last one came to dominate, and I called the journal my “Worry Book”–once a worry was written down, it was exorcised. I closed the book each day and wouldn’t allow myself to worry about it anymore, since it was in the book. This may seem like a simple trick, and it didn’t always work, but sometimes it did and I emerged from that difficult year with a record of all of the most important things on my mind. That’s fodder for a book, right there!

You may be a classic journaler, or you might be a “worry booker.” You might take down notes, reporter-style, or you might be more the sort to challenge yourself to write a poem a day. Whatever it is, be systematic. Sit down at the same time every day–preferably early, before the day really gets started–and knock out a few drops of ink from that fountain pen of yours. You can afford to write disconnected and fragmentary thoughts about life in your journal–but you can’t afford not to write at all. Keep that pen in hand, folks, even when life gets busy–and remember what my coworker’s dad said!

It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be done.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure this applies to first drafts and initial thoughts and journals every bit as much as it does to Christmas dinner. Just remember who you are, and what builds you up–what refreshes you and energizes you and prepares you for the day. I’m pretty sure it’s going to involve a pen!

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
elizabeth speaks, Holidays, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Be the Life of the Party…Literally!

book club book party coffee tea nature

It can be hard, reinventing the wheel. Every holiday season, the same challenges and opportunities roll around–and every author is forced to decide: this one, or that one? Host a reading at the library, or coordinate a potluck and book sale at home? Or, worst of all, there’s the option of letting the holidays slide–of letting them drift away in a haze of busy schedules and truly important family and social demands–without making use of them as an author.

My suggestion? Host a holiday writing party! This isn’t your plain-Jane reading or book sale, although you could definitely incorporate elements of those tried-and-trues into your new plan. No–a writing party is much more inclusive and much more fun for kids of all ages (“from one to ninety-two” as Nat King Cole would put it). And while you are still the facilitator and secret power-broker behind the scenes of a writing party, you’re not the sole event–and at this time of year, that’s a blessing! No really, one can only pull off the holidays if one is expected to carry every burden. And typically, once the idea of a writing party is broached, everyone is eager to pitch in!

If you’re thinking “Hey! That’s not such a bad idea!” then I have a couple of suggestions, based on prior experience (I love these parties!):

  • Have everyone bring a dish, and in a twist have them steer clear of the typical holiday goodies, which everyone will very soon be sick of from sheer quantity–candies and cookies and so forth. Instead, have them bring something inspired by one of their favorite books! Kids might find something in Redwall to inspire, and there is an entire genre dedicated to “geek cookbooks” online, where you can find cookbooks (official and unofficial) with recipes from The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Little House on the Prairie, among others … so this is not such a difficult challenge to meet. (And adults: there are endless lists of cocktails inspired by literature out there, so don’t be afraid to crack open that bar after the kids go to bed!)
  • Dedicate a part of your session just to snacking. It’s worth it, and it gets the chatting and the fiddling and the greasy fingers out of the way before the serious work begins. There’s usually a quiet lull in the conversation about twenty minutes in which serves as a nice segway–but again, everyone’s party should be tailored to suit your specific vision! Just make sure that food is stored away from the writing table, since messes do tend to happen–and everybody has a favorite “loud chewing sound” story! (Hot beverages are usually handy at the table, though.)
  • Then, get down to business. You’ll know what this ought to look like when it happens, and when it feels right. Every book club, writing club, and party has its own rhythm, but don’t worry–you’ll know. Sometimes it’s helpful to keep a timer nearby, or to set one up on your phone–breaking writing up into a couple of shorter sessions with quick snack and bathroom breaks in between is one way to keep everyone’s blood moving and energy up. And if that doesn’t cut it, consider leading a couple of breathing activities or even–yes!–yoga moves! Studies indicate significant improvements to focus in intellectual activities when the body is kept active and balanced. (It helps with carpal tunnel syndrome, too. Shake out those cramped wrists and fingers!) Oh–and don’t forget to offer up a couple of writing “prompts” for anyone in need of inspiration, and gear them towards your audience. Adults may want to write fiction–or letters to loved ones at Christmas. Kids might want to doodle or draw, or slay a dragon in five paragraphs or fewer!
  • Wrap up with a quick reflection. Try to steer clear of putting any one person on the spot, but offer up a couple of open questions about books, characters, challenges, and more. At this point, or as the last writing session is wrapping up, you can begin bringing the snacks to the writing table. The goal is for everyone to reach a point of total relaxation and contentment, and holiday joy.

Be inspired. There are so many shapes and forms your writing party might take–it may look nothing like the one I’ve described here–it might be outside, with just a couple of friends, or inside, with a pack of small children looking on. It could be held at the library! Or at your kitchen table. There’s no one way to hold a writing party–but a writing party is the best kind of party. After all, like the adult coloring movement–like Knit Night–like quilting and gardening and origami and yoga and meditating on one’s reading, writing is an activity which triggers serotonin release, calm, peace, and rejuvenation in those who take part in it. We can’t think of a better way to kick the holiday stress than by hosting a writing party!

What do you think? Will you have a chance to host an event this Christmas season? We’d love to hear about it. Drop us a line in the comments section below.

book party grandpa grandfather grandchildren children

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
elizabeth speaks, Holidays, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: The Spice of Life

Last week, dear readers, I wrote at length about how Thanksgiving isn’t just a holiday for giving and receiving things–if it were, then it would be no different from Halloween and Christmas, save for the stitching and embroidery–but I have to be the first person to own up to the fact that what I wrote wasn’t the whole picture. Yes, Thanksgiving is about doing things and not just about a fantastic dinner spread. Yes, Thanksgiving was borne as a tradition out of a time of real need and desperation–of near starvation, to be specific.

Everything I wrote last week remains true. But it’s not everything that ought to be said about Thanksgiving. And today, the final Thursday of November and Thanksgiving Day itself, I wanted to leave room for reflection. For gratitude. For joy unmixed with lingering doubts or fears over what’s to come, if that’s possible in today’s hectic world. (Oh, let’s face it: It’s always been a hectic world. Maybe once it was safe to eat those candied apples in our Halloween buckets, but by and large life has always delivered challenges in equal measure to its happinesses.)

Ugh–let me start over.

thanksgiving spice

I want to leave the door cracked for thankfulness untouched by everything else that’s happening or going to happen. For you, dear reader. For sticking with us for so many years, for your likes and your comments and your feedback and, occasionally, for calling us out on what we need calling out on. Thank you for being loyal, for being so smart, for recommending us to your friends (or at least, we’re assuming our newer followers are here because they heard about us from someone). For being writers. For bearing the torch and mustering the determination to slog forward through thick and thin. For being ours, and for being yourselves. I know I speak for everyone else here at Self Publishing Advisor when I say thank you, dear reader, for joining us as we all walk down this road together–a road that leads to new challenges, new joys, and a new year.

You are the spice of life.

~ Thank you. ~

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Marketing, elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Making Your Presence Felt

It would be hard to get to 2016 and not feel convicted of the importance of social media in selling books–and, just as importantly, in selling readers on you, the author. The power and influence of social media is uncontested–after all, it has helped feed and foment revolutions in the Middle East, toppling dictators and spinning the mythological webs that create internet celebrities. They have also, demonstrably, created the framework by which self-published authors become self-sufficient and successful. Authors like Lisa Genova (Still Alice) and Hugh Howey (Wool) often credit their devoted social media fanbase for moving their books out of obscurity and into the blockbuster realm.

With that kind of a recommendation on the table, it almost seems a waste to not partake in the wave of social media platforms developing today, right? But wanting to start developing your social media strategy and actually building it from the ground up are two separate propositions. And ultimately, it’s hard to know where to start.

Luckily, there’s not so much one way to get it wrong, but rather so many ways to get it right. This is because there are so many platforms out there, including:

And so many more! Because social media is a moving target–for example, the short-video-hosting platform Vine, owned by Twitter, was shut down recently for its inability to turn a profit for company shareholders–there’s no predicting which platforms will be on the ascent in a given year and which will be on its way out, like the age-old example of Myspace, a platform which more or less lost all of its users once Facebook became peoples’ primary conduit of digital social contact.

This changing landscape isn’t a bad thing, in the end. It’s a strength! It means that yes, you need to be willing to continually adapt to new platforms and to pick up new skills, but it also means that if you’re not all that good at one, you can always capture your readers by making a comprehensive social media presence, rounded out with a variety of different smaller presences that weave together into something greater than the sum of their parts.

I guess what I’m saying is: Try everything. Try everything, and don’t hold on too tightly to any one of those things. Experimentation is the mother of invention, as is necessity, and these two forces will keep your social media presence in a constant state of evolution, well-suited to the M.O. of the Internet itself. Maybe soon we’ll have options to network not just with our friends and our refrigerators, but with our books as active participants themselves. Can you imagine what that might look like? I’d bet you five dollars that someone out there is already figuring out how to make it happen. And that’s the wonderful thing about change: it’s wild and wonderful and asks very little of us except the will to keep up!

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.
Alternative Marketing Methods, Book Marketing, elizabeth speaks, in your corner, Marketing Your Self-Published Book, Uncategorized

In Your Corner: Marketing for Anything-But-Dummies

Have you ever wondered what “proper” marketing support might look like, and how imperative it is to self-publishing successfully? What about implementation–have you ever wondered what effective implementation of your carefully-planned-out marketing plan might look like, too? I’m going to spend a bit of time this Thursday thinking through some of the answers to these questions.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years of working with self-publishing authors, both as an author myself and as an author advocate and representative for other authors with Outskirts Press, it’s that there’s quite a lot of truth to the statement that “preparation is the key to success”–but as Marie Forleo puts it, sometimes “the key to success is to start before you’re ready.” How do we make these two things compatible? Aren’t they mutually exclusive?

the key to success is to start before you're ready marie forleo

Here’s a thought: what if they’re not?

I don’t think they are, and that’s because I think “preparedness” and “readiness” are two separate modes of being. Preparedness, in my mind, is the process of taking concrete steps to plan ahead for whatever you can, and putting in place measures–good habits, good coping mechanisms, and good thoughts–that will see you through any times when being prepared will do no good. Readiness, on the other hand, has more to do with confidence–and sometimes, your sense of how ready you are for a thing may or may not line up with what you’re prepared for. Sometimes, we won’t feel ready to get started on a thing even if we’ve planned thoroughly and set our good habits in stone. Those are the moments, I think, that Marie Forleo speaks to–the moments when we just need to get started, whether or not our feelings line up with reality.

Proper marketing support, then, should help you both prepare and, hopefully, acquire the confidence to feel that you’re ready as well. And as my fellow writer Kelly Schuknecht pointed out in her “Marketing Master Strokes” series of blogs earlier this year, effective marketing strategies require a willingness to reach your readers where they live, to incentivize, and to play well with others–among others. “Proper” marketing support will assist you in doing all these things–and if that seems a bit beyond the pale for the ordinary self-publishing company, luckily, there are several extraordinary self-publishing companies–and I know I’m a little biased, but I happen to think my coworkers among the Personal Marketing Assistants working for Outskirts Press count as extraordinary. So if you feel like some of these points might be beyond your reach, consider reaching out and making contact with the experts, either through a paid service or through a more casual network, as on social media.

The best part of looking to the experts is that doing so will assist you in execution as well as in planning–so you’ll get the best of both preparation and readiness. Or at least, that’s the goal.

It’s hard to boil down all of the salient points regarding marketing into one coherent blog post, but luckily, and perhaps it’s a little trite to say “oh, I’m not ready to do that” given the context of today’s subject (you can tell how some of my jokes bomb around the dinner table, can’t you?). But the fact of the matter is, Self Publishing Advisor has been a resource for self-publishing authors looking to market their books for most of a decade now, and our archives are rife with posts on the subject–including those by Kelly that I mentioned earlier. If you’re looking for those concrete steps to transform the broad strokes we’ve brushed here into tangible steps, her series is spectacular. I highly recommend taking a look!

Marketing Master Strokes:

  1. What do ears, geysers, and self-publishing have in common?
  2. Be willing to reach your readers where they live
  3. Incentivize!
  4. Play Well With Others
  5. Try Every New Thing

You are not alone. ♣︎

Elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 18 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Manager of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, pre-production specialists, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.