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Try on a Whole New Set of Clothes Metaphorically Speaking (Weekly article)
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September 11, 2015
Hi Friend,
Welcome to CreativitySparks (tm) newsletter, tips, resources, and coaching for novelists to build successful and sustainable careers.
We focus on helping you write, publish, and market your novels.
By reading this email you are a part of a community of writers, mostly genre novelists, who write because they have something to say and want to say it in a compelling story way.
Welcome to our Creativity Sparks community!
♥
A word about this day in our history: On this day 14 years ago, the world changed... the world as we knew it fell. May we honor the fallen, bless our children, and stand up for compassion, healing, finding common ground, and protecting life. May all displaced people's find safe haven. May all torn hearts find peace.
♥
Today in my teaching article, I cover stepping into an author marketing mindset as if it were a new set of clothes.
But first, a summary of what's in this newsletter: - Short Personal Note from Beth
- Author Marketing Mindset: New Set of Clothes (Part 2)
- Scholarship available for October 2015 Plan Your Novel class
- *Free* Live Webinar next week: Register now! Space is limited!
Personal Note from Beth
This Wednesday, I turned in my latest magical contemporary romance, A Cupcake Christmas, to my beta readers. Whew! It was an intense and actually delicious push to spend the last few weeks editing my novella that morphed with all my revisions into a short novel. I feel nervous and excited to hear what my beta readers will say. And I'm so grateful that I got to first gallop through my first draft, after the planning phase of course, and then meander and deepen into the editing, after critique partner feedback.
I'm relaxing into the truth that my stories really do impact people. Readers tell me my stories bring them a smile or help them step away from a difficult situation. Potential readers are reading my description of my next book and are telling me that they want to read a book like that right now. Super gratifying.
I share all of this with you because I want you to know that getting comfortable with marketing my fiction has taken time. I've been publishing my young adult fantasy for over 4 years and my romance for over 2 years. And it's just recently in the last few months that I feel really excited to share my work and honored that I get to touch readers' hearts.
Before I often felt embarrassed, or unsure, lacking confidence, and felt like a squirrel in the road. I didn't know whether or not to flee or freeze, and often went blank when faced with setting up any kind of marketing plan.
I understand what it's like to be so focused on craft that marketing feels like such a overwhelming skill set to learn. Because I'm an introvert (really), wrapping my head around much of our cultural ways and best practices around marketing has often felt yucky to me.
This is why I teach marketing for authors the way I do... from the inside out. Tactics and strategies don't work if they're not aligned with who you are.
So on to part 2 of my Author Marketing mindset series on trying on a new set of clothes, helping you discover more who you are. |
| | | Author Marketing Mindset: Try on a New Set of Clothes (Metaphorically Speaking) (Part 2)
This week let's look at how your mindset or your beliefs about author and book marketing can change as easily as trying on a new set of clothes.
Imagine that you're at your favorite clothing store. Money is no object and the clerk has just brought you a bunch of outfits all in your size. Some of these clothes you picked out yourself; some you let the clerk pick for you.
You start to try on these outfits. They all fit but some don't look right. But you don't always know which will look good on you and which won't. In fact, the outfits you thought for sure would look great, don't necessarily, and outfits that you would have never picked for yourself look great. You see yourself in new ways as you try on the clothes. Your sense of self has shifted, and with it what you thought possible.
I'm guessing that it's no surprise to you that your beliefs determines how you experience reality. As novelists, you put this in action all the time.
Your beliefs about book and author marketing are no different.
Try this exercise on for size.
List some beliefs you have about marketing that you'd like to change. If you're not sure what you believe, check out part 1 where I help you uncover your marketing beliefs. Maybe you have these:
- Marketing is hard.
- I don't know how to do marketing.
- I hate marketing.
- Sales is yucky.
Now list some beliefs you'd like to have. No need to stretch to something that isn't comfortable. Pick a few that would be fun, nice, or that you're curious about. Beliefs like:
- Marketing could be fun.
- Marketing is a way to share. I can do that. I do that all the time.
- Marketing connects people with what they want or need.
- We're always selling something, whether we're aware of it or not.
These are examples, so list your own. Your turn!
You're free to try on new beliefs, like stepping into a new outfit. If you don't like the outfit or the belief, you can always take them off or shift it.
Write me and let me know how this exercise was for you. Let me know any ahas or discoveries.
What marketing beliefs do you want to let go of? What marketing beliefs do you want to try on or step completely into and make your own?
Let me know!
♥
Best, Beth
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| You can now apply for a scholarship
for the October Plan Your Novel class!
For those of you who want support, tools, lessons, and community, join us in the October live course, "Plan Your Novel" 30-Day Writing Challenge.
Check it out here:
http://30daywritingchallengefornovelists.bethbarany.com/
In our 30-day class (with the 31st to celebrate!), we will cover planning these aspects of your novel:
- In Week 1, we start small with the Elevator Pitch & Short Synopsis.
- In Week 2, we help you Get to Know Your Main Characters, as it relates to your story.
- In Week 3, we expand the scope into getting clear on your Story Plot & World Building.
- In Week 4, we help you draft a Scene-by-Scene Outline & do Plotting in a way that works for you.
In our October course, we gently challenge writers to plan their entire novels in 30 days, so that they can sit down with confidence and clarity on November 1st and write their novel during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, a free international movement and nonprofit), or any time.
You're invited to join us!
Early Bird Bonuses
Sign up now and also get 2 cool marketing courses for novelists as bonus gifts!
Valued at over $350.
Sign up by Sept. 17th, 9pm PT to get these bonuses.
♥
Scholarships Now Available for the Plan Your Novel course To pay it forward all the ways in which I've been helped in my writing and author career journey, we're offering several full and partial scholarships. Designed specifically for those who are facing financial hardship, we ask that you fill out a short application and share a bit about yourself. Good luck! Deadline to apply: Sept. 25, 6pm PT.
Apply here:
Deadline to apply: Friday, Sept. 25, 6pm PT.
♥
I look forward to having you in the course!
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| | Join us! Space is limited!
Tuesday, Sept. 15, 3pm Pacific
Free LIVE WEBINAR with Beth Barany and Penny Sansevieri
How to Step Into a Marketing Mindset & How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon
Sign up to be sure you get the recording if you can't attend live. |
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Have a Happy and Creative Week!
And thanks for showing up for yourself and doing your creative work!
All our best,
Beth & Ezra
beth@bethbarany.com
PS.
If you found this newsletter useful, please forward it to your friends,
writing buddies, and people who you know want to write a novel, but
gosh darn it, haven't, yet.
♥
ABOUT US
Beth and Ezra Barany
are award-winning, best-selling novelists, with 18 books and 5 awards to their name. They are teachers who have worked
with over 100 authors to help them get their books written and
published and into the hands of their readers.
♥ Happily married for over 15 years, we’re passionate about writing, storytelling, and guiding authors to achieve their dreams.
♥ We
offer coaching, change work sessions, book marketing coaching (Beth)
and cover design (Ezra), all for genre novelists. More at bethbarany.com.
ABOUT BETH BARANY
An
award-winning novelist, certified creativity coach and Master NLP
Practitioner, Beth runs Writer's Fun Zone, a blog for and by writers,
and her recently launched school for novelists, the Barany School of
Fiction.
In
her downtime, Beth takes walks, paints, watches movies with her sweetie,
travels, and has coffee with friends and family. And plays with her two
cats, gardens, and does capoeira. And sleeps. She loves sleep.
Photo Credit: by c. 2014 Vivienne McMaster
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