Year One: Part Five - The List
Welcome to the fifth installment of Year One - you can access the previous entries right here!
Last time we talked about the act of writing. Today I'm going to take a step back...
It’s time to write. And write you must or you won’t have anything to sell. You already know what you’re going to write and how you’re going to write it.
Now it’s time to sit down and pump out that first draft, re-write, publish it, and the whole world will jump all over it when it’s ready.
This is where I would insert the record scratch if I could.
At this point you should definitely be writing and writing every day, but stop and take a second to think about one thing:
Your work is not Field of Dreams! Once you’ve built it, they will not come. Because they don’t know about it!
If you are writing just to do it and not worried about people buying or ever really reading your work, then you can disregard this.
My biggest regret when I released Shady Place was that I started marketing it six months to a year too late. When you settle on and decide what you are going to write you need to start letting the world know and that’s where The List comes in.
Your biggest and best supporters are going to be the people you know. This is what helped make Shady Place a success in the early going in my opinion. I knew enough people who, as they say, know, like, and trust me to give my book a shot and I’m grateful every day for every one of them.
I could have made Shady Place a much bigger success if I had begun cultivating an email list a year ahead of the book’s launch instead of the week after it was already out.
That’s what I do now, if you’re reading this you likely are on my email list and get updates about what I’m up to, hopefully you feel like you are getting an opportunity to know me and what I’m all about.
Email is the best way to communicate with people, way better than all the noise we are bombarded with on social media.
I’ve got my list now, I touch people as frequently as I can without being a bother, and I hope I provide some value to those who receive my updates.
If you’re thinking about being a creator of any sort don’t wait, start building that list now, tell people what you’re up to. It will help give you the leg up that I wish I had figured out before I got so far in! Not sure how to do it or where to start? Email me and I’ll talk you through it.
BONUS/DISCLAIMER: Take your choice. If you start sharing with the world that you are going to be bringing something awesome into the world, you damn well better do it.
Use this as motivation or terrify you, either works:)