Nightmare at 30,000 Feet

Do ya’ll remember the “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet” on the Twilight Zone where William Shatner plays a man who is on an airplane and thinks he sees something on the wing of an airplane, pulls the window shade down only to jerk it right back up at an impulse because he THINKS something’s out there?

That’s me!

I planned a weekend of peace and quiet with no thought of publishing, think tanks, or sales gimmicks. I told myself and others I would be out of touch and using self control to refrain from getting online.

I took the easels outside and got Boyd out in the 68 degree weather and we painted a tropical sunset with a moon rising. (He did pretty good for his first oil painting.)

My niece brought food cooked off the grill. The windy breeze came in from the southwest. We sat down on the church pew on my front porch. (A regular bench or porch swing isn’t big enough) No one mentioned publishing or marketing or what the rank of my book was on Amazon. (I am usually watching it obsessively and compulsively.)

The grandniece and her 13-year-old girlfriend went and got the five three-week-old kittens I am sheltering from a stray I found and brought them out in an Easter basket for us to cuddle and coo over.

I went to the grocery and got groceries and made me a drink. A coke. I opened my email and wrote to Pat, saying I was cool and calm with nothing to interrupt me from reading on her new book, A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Then I went looking for the book and got side tracked when my niece came to see the finished painting. I had to let the cat out . . . changed a nasty litterbox, started picking up and cleaning . . . all depressing tasks... then it happened.

Yep. Then it happened. I pulled the window shade up. Up came the lid on my laptop, like the addict who yanks the lid off the bottle of valium and right onto Facebook without another thought, except that Pat might be answering my former email. Excuses, excuses. Bonnie might just be sending an email...telling myself I wasn’t looking for any news from Indie Publishers and BOOM!

My fingers did the walking over to Pat’s profile and I hit the link for this discussion.

And look what happened! I did find something! Here’s the list, people. I got practically the same stuff in my marketing package from my publisher give or take some things that you do with your publisher, or an assigned marketeer.

Boy, am I glad I lost control! Amen to this posting! I have been down this road. You have to follow every lead that you can. Everywhere you run an errand make sure you take a book with you and have them in your car trunk.

There’s something in her article that I want to point out.

Her BOOK sells her BOOK.

She is saying that after she sold some books more books sold! That’s when you know you are making headway. If you can make the book sell more books then you are moving at the right pace. If your book has been on the market a while and you have done these things and your book is sitting still then you need to re-evaluate your book.

The book Sherrie is talking about…Night and Day...is new on the market. If she is selling these quickly and they are new on the market then she is doing more than just marketing her book. Her book is selling her book.

This is a recipe for success.

But because I haven't paid attention to my priorities lately, I'm going back to Pat;s book now,A Spark of Heavenly Fire and find out how Mr. rich man millionaire, (Jeremy) is going to slither out of town in an old clunker he paid an arm and leg for, and how he’s gonna make out with those doubled up sleeping bags. Maybe a scorpion will crawl into his sleeping bag as he slides into it the first night . . . it ought to . . . go in that bag and sting him. He’s making me sick with loathsome self-indulgence and he outta have to eat out of a can of beans and use a regular can opener like some of us down here in Southaven, Ms. I can’t wait for him to get bit by something.

I am pulling the window shade back down. I feel an idea coming on. I am about to start a new Think Tank. But first I am going back to A Spark of Heavenly Fire.While I go do that, here's the link to the Floozy.

The Book Marketing Floozy