Two years ago I had a dream.
The dream was pretty interesting and when I got up, I still wanted to be asleep because I wanted to continue dreaming.
Then I thought, seriously, I need to share this dream with people because its just so interesting.
But then, I'd had other 'dreams' that I've had before, I'd started to write them down, but somehow, I never got to the end.
Somewhere along the way, I always found that the writing petered out! Not because the story did, or because I lost interest...
well, okay, sometimes I lost interest.
Mostly though, other things just took precedence and I found myself lost in the details of other 'more important' things like work, and family, and laundry...
However this story; this story did not let me stop writing it.
It stayed front and centre for the entire five months it took me to put it down on paper...
well, not paper, MS Word.
Sometimes writing until 4am in the morning without feeling the least bit tired.
I'd go to bed some days just because it was clearly morning and someone said that people need to sleep every day.
So yes, I got the book written...
and then what? Nobody was going to read it if it was just hanging out on my laptop and if people were going to read it, I might as well make some money right? Well that was my thinking anyway so I sent away to some publishers and a year later, I got the reply I was waiting for.
We read your work; we loved your work; we want to publish your work.
'Wonderful, break out the champagne!' I thought, but I also thought, 'has this been too easy?' One does hear of the stories of people waiting ten years, twenty years for their work to be published - why did only my second attempt at finding a publisher meet with success? I recognised what that was though - fear of success and so I ignored it.
The book was published in digital form and then it was my job to make sure that everyone heard of it.
How you ask? Social media mostly, hopefully enough buzz is created for word of mouth to do the rest, or word of mouse maybe.
So I posted links on all my social media accounts and my blogs and told every single person I knew to spread the word.
That does work, but then you have to think about sustainability.
What happens when everyone in your immediate circle and everyone in their immediate circle has heard of the book? What else can you do to get on those best seller lists? One thing that one can definitely do is not give up on repeating the message.
Just because everyone has heard, doesn't mean everyone has purchased.
So keep reminding them; people lead busy lives and you have to stay in front of their eyes if you want them to notice you.
Once you get them to read, then how much they enjoyed it should do the rest.