A couple of incidents this week reminded me of this quote, and led me to write this blog post. Authors are always scrambling for opportunities to promote their books, but most expect it come when they want it to, not when it actually does arrive. Many think that all of the major opportunities for their book will come as soon as their book's release date arrives, but I have rarely found that to be the case.
Yesterday, I received a phone call from a producer of a nationally-known television news program. I won't mention it specifically here, but let's just say you would definitely recognize it, and it reaches millions of people every week. The producer wanted me to put them in touch with an author. Great! These are exactly the types of opportunities I love to pass along to my authors! However, when I tried to reach the author, their phone number had been disconnected. They had changed their number and not sent me the new one. Luckily, I was able to reach them by email, but this could have been a huge missed opportunity for them. This author's book was released 2 1/2 years ago.
Another one of our staff received a phone call from Focus on the Family. They wanted one of our authors to write an article for one of their publications. The publication reaches millions of people, and of course, the author would be able to mention their book. This author's book was released about 18 months ago.
As you can see, some time has passed since the books' release dates until these authors were presented with career-boosting opportunities. They didn't happen within a few weeks of the release date, as so many expect, but after both authors had put in time and effort to position themselves as experts in their fields.
A successful writing career consists of writing good books and a series of opportunities that may come your way. Those opportunities can come at any time, whether it is 2 months or two years after your book's release date. Patience and persistence always win the day. Will you be ready for opportunities that come your way?
What are some of the opportunities you have been able to take advantage of? How long did you work at promoting your book before these opportunities became available? Please share in the Comments section of this post.
2 comments:
Patience and persistence is my motto Terry. My book Fern Valley-A Collection of Short Stories has been out for ten months now. Just a week or so ago Shannon from Southern Writer Magazine, who follows my blog www.aileenwstewart.blogspot.com, commented that they liked a blog I wrote about the top ten things a new author should be doing. She then asked if I would write a similar article for their magazine's online blog. This opens up a whole new audience to me!
Persistence is definitely a key. I am a Tate author - "How To Survive (and perhaps thrive) On A Teacher's Salary" - and worked very hard at promoting my book.
My book came out in 2007 and I did not have immediate success at promoting it. I did land a few radio interviews and some print interviews. I did not lose hope and kept promoting myself which led to some positive media exposure.
Now, a little over 4 years after my book came out, I have appeared on over 300 radio shows, been interviewed on numerous television shows including The CBS Early Show, Fox & Friends, CNN's Newsroom, The Clark Howard Show and MSNBC Live. In addition I have been interviewed in many national publications including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo.com and Money Magazine.
The great thing about this exposure is it led me to write another book - "A Simple Book Of Financial Wisdom: Teach Yourself (and your kids) How To Live Wealthy With Little Money." Since I was able to show that I would work hard at promoting my book, I was able to publish this book for free! Just remember that persistence does pay off and keep pitching yourself and giving any interview that comes your way.
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