Book Promotion Strategy September results

On April 30, I was let go from my corporate job.  It was a pretty sweet director's position, one I had created especially for me through years of hard work and dedication.  In fact, the team I led was so successful, the company used our practices and business model for the majority of segments in the remainder of 2015 and planning for 2016.  It was all about growth.

I think it was Spider Man's uncle who said, with great growth comes great accountability.  Or something like that.  It's kind of hard to hear an old man gurgling out his last words when he's bleeding out in an alley.  RIP Ben Parker.  Now pour your 40 on the ground.

Back to my growth.  The bosses higher up wanted someone in charge of my segment to oversee all the growing we were planning.  So in Sept 2014, they brought in a guy who instantly decided I had to go.  There's something inherently wrong about companies that allow this sort of culling to go on.  You have a perfectly mediocre manager who does exactly what the company needs and delivers just above flat performance, but is safe, versus an out of the box thinker who while they can deliver results, is considered a threat to mediocrity in mid-level management.

Just ask yourself, what would you do?  I can't really blame the guy for creating the environment form hell that he created.  I knew what he was doing.  He wanted me gone.  I even shared my prediction with several of my managers who reported to me.  "He'll fire me in six months," I told them.

Six months to the day, guess what happened.

I'm not a big dummy, despite what Fred Sanford says, and during those six months, I saved.  I set aside enough money to fund me for at least six months, reasoning I could at least find another job when that time was up.

In the six months though, I planned to launch my own business. I was going to be an author-prenuer.

Then I got the bug to kayak down the Mississippi River from the headwaters to the Gulf for two months, a la Huck Finn, and that ate into my time to launch.  Then I spent a month with my children for the beginning of their vacation.  Then I spent a month with my girlfriend to thank her for putting up with the kind of idiot who wanted to solo the MS River.  Oh yeah, I also completed the 100 mile Key West 100, traveled to Memphis, Dallas, Arkansas, Sanibel Island, and beaches along the Florida coast.

When I finally settled down to jump start this business, I still had a little cushion of time.  Then I read the fine print in Amazon's payout schedule.  They'll pay you 60 days after the close of the month you earn the money.  Huh.

Kinda wish I'd read that before heading out on the headwaters where internet reception was spotty at best.

Still there's on time like right now to get going, so on Sept 7, I started the business of being a writer.

I'm no newbie though.  Before I went into a steady paycheck in corporate America, I wrote blogs, articles and scripts for hire.  I worked in Hollywood for a little while and made some money screenwriting.  And I wrote.  Constantly.  By hand.  About 10,000 pages of notebook paper, flipped over, sometimes even on the back.  Story after story after story, reasoning that one day I would just sit down and type it all up, edit, proof, and publish.

Which is exactly what I did on Sept 7.  I started adding titles to Amazon KDP.  I started working on new stuff, and I focused on the business of being an authorprenuer.

Basically all that growth I did for a segment of another business, I planned to do for the books I wrote.

So how did September go?  I made several hundred dollars and gave away 600 copies of books.  I was a Kindle Best Seller with 3 works in 3 different categories.  And I learned.  I studied KDP, and KDP Select, Amazon, and KDP World.

My plan is to track this journey in this blog, and share with you why I think independent publishing is the right business to be in for what I want to do with my life.  I'm going to share my triumphs and mistakes, and ask questions.  I'm going to follow the advice I've shared with so many people I've mentored and led in the business world.  I'm going to find someone who is doing exactly what I want to do and do everything they do.

I found him today.  JA Konrath.  Read his Blog. Study his methods.

I'm also looking for other authors to research.

In Sept, I grew my Twitter following to 1184, up by 1100 people.  I tweeted daily, about my books, about jokes, about popular topics.

What I haven't done yet is post to my FB page, which comes in Oct.  And start working on my Pinterest page.  And start working on my Google + page.

Because I've been very busy typing up words and working on stories to reach my personal goal of 12 novels of 50,000 words up by Dec.  They've been written, they're just sitting in a pile waiting for me to type them up and get them ready to go.

I can't wait to see what October holds.  I think 900 - 1500 copies should be very doable.  With Christmas fast approaching, I want to build a catalog for all those Kindle's given as gifts.

Sign up for my email list and I'll let you know when the next one is coming out.