Friday, January 11, 2008

Whew! One Long Week!!

"The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose." ~ Napoleon Hill

I am so glad to get to Friday, this week...somehow, January became a crazy month. Signed my contract with Samhain, yesterday, though, and will put it into the mail today - exciting! (Even though they made some changes to it...notably that you have to sell more copies to make $$...but it wasn't like One Night in Boston was rocking the charts, so I didn't have a huge problem with the changes. Anyway...)

Today's Marianne's birthday - go over and wish her a happy one!

I'm off to my local RWA chapter meeting tomorrow, and have lots to do, promo-wise, between now and the end of the month, so I'll be busy reading and writing and marketing (what else is new?). During my telephone interview the other day, I told the woman about what an effort constant self-promotion is, and that it's probably the one thing I wish I knew before I first published. Not that it would have changed my desire to be published - I just would have been more prepared.

For any of you writers out there, how challenging (or frustrating) do you find marketing yourself? I've gotten better, I think, and I know what seems to work for me and what I feel most comfortable doing...and what I don't. Still, it's a never-ending process, isn't it?

At least until I land an interview spot on Oprah...LOL

Happy Friday!

7 comments:

Marianne Arkins said...

Promotion is by FAR the hardest part of being published. Holy cow... Worse, it takes so much time away from your writing time. But, it has to be done if you want to sell your stuff. Wish I was La Nora, and could hire someone to do it for me! LOL...

Congrats again on the sale of ONIM. Where's your next city? You could combine your last two novels and do "One Night In Paradise" (there's a little city in California called that...)

LOL. Thanks again for my trailer.

Ceri Hebert said...

I'm so bad at promoting. I'm not a sales person by any stretch of the imagination. Do you find that RWA is a help in that area?

Congrats on the new contract! And bravo on the trailer you made for Marianne! It was beautiful!

Judy said...

Congratulations on your contract. That's wonderful! I'm so proud of you.

You outdid yourself with Marianne's trailer. I cried. You captured the spirit of the book perfectly.

Have a great weekend.

windycindy said...

I am not a writer, just a stay at home mom! Don't we all have to promote ourselves in some way all of the time? I know you can do it. You seem energetic and you will get the job done! Best wishes for success!
Cindi
jchoppes[at]hotmail[dot]com

Diane Craver said...

Allie,
You did a wonderful job on the trailer you did for Marianne - I love it! You definitely have a talent for making trailers.

Promotion is hard. I never realized how time consuming it would be, but you have to do it.

Dru said...

Congrats on your contract. Enjoy your time at the RWA meeting.

I saw the trailer that you did for Marianne...oh man, it was great.

Have a good weekend.

Allie Boniface said...

Ceri, I don't know that RWA is a huge help in the area of promotion except that it gives you a few additional areas in which to advertise (their magazine, info about sending things to conferences, etc). I definitely wouldn't tell someone to join RWA just to up their promo opportunities.