Well I was going to be writing a completely different post today, but after a phone call with my youngest son back home the words ‘Let the games begin’ came out and … well… here we are!
You see my 7 Week Author Course opens up for registration in just 2 days, and to be honest, I haven’t spent much time promoting it since I’ve been back on land.
I’ve had a massive curve ball to deal with and again, to be honest it has knocked me for 6, and then another 6 and left me in floods of tears and asking the question “what the actual… !?”
They say God doesn’t give you more than you can handle and to be honest, I am done handling this kind of crap.
Like really done.
Done with the games people play, but especially authors.
Say whaaaat?
What games do they play?
Well the biggest game they play is the ‘I’m an international bestselling author’ game; and yes, yours truly, sat here typing this blog is an international bestselling author, but here’s the difference between me and a lot of the authors who claim this title.
I have written more than one book, and each book is more than 60,000 words; and there are another 17 in the pipeline at the moment.
I haven’t written a 10,000 word PDF and sold it as an ebook for $1 for 24 hours, never to write another book again and called myself an author.
Which is what many business professionals do to open doors to key note speeches, lecturing in Universities and a whole host of other opportunities; and who can blame them?
Being a published author is an achievement, something which only 1% of the population ever achieve. 3% of the world’s population write a book of some kind, but only 1% ever publish one.
Telling people you are an author impresses a lot of people, and it also creates an continuous income stream if done properly, and not just from the royalties either.
Creating Multiple Income Streams is something I cover in my 7 Week Author Course because there are, as my Nan would say “many ways to skin a cat”.
(Please note, no cats have been harmed in my own personal author career!)
The status of being an international bestselling author is, to be honest, really quite easy to achieve, and again, it is something I cover during the 7 Week Author Course.
But being an international bestseller isn’t all it’s cracked up to be for many. Why? Because it puts a huge amount of pressure on the author to hit that target again, and again, and again.
It can trap them in a downward spiral and instead of looking at the other options which are available to them, they get deflated and lose hope.
Yes this kind of status opens doors, and so do many others. Awards, content creator, creative producer, contributing author and oh so many more!
You see one of the things to do as an author is to understand first and foremost the marketing games played within the genre of choice. Understand that and things become a lot easier to make money.
The other golden rule when becoming an author is to understand the games publishing houses, distributors and bookshops will play with you, or at least want to play with you.
Then you need to understand the media games, how to play them and how to turn them into revenue outside of royalties.
Many hugely successful authors have been signed by a major publishing house, have merchandise, and over many have over 30 books published by mainstream publishers, which tend to be of the fiction variety.
Others like myself share our skills, knowledge and experience in non-fiction books of the personal devlopment and memoir genres.
We also deliver 1:1, coaching courses, online trainings and go on to write for magazines, TV, radio and film. You can check out my different offers here.
So, with all these different ways to create incomes and exposure as an author, you can see why when the phrase “let the games begin” was spoken, it resonated with me on a few levels.
Manipulation marketing is not ethical, nor does it stay under the radar for very long.
People are wising up, and fast; and audiences for any product or service do not like to be manipulated.
Some would argue that these professionals who use the title ‘International Bestselling Author’ are not manipulating, or playing games. Thay have indeed written a book. They did become an international bestseller in the first 24 hours of the book going on sale at a price of $0.99… but are they really an author if they only wrote a 10 page A4 pdf and sold it as an e-book?
I’ll leave you to decide for yourself.
And if you are a leader of the female variety, and would like to know more about my 7 Week Course, or my 1:1 coaching, then message me and let’s have a conversation.
Ciao for now!
Oh and P.S. here is a really interesting blog post on reading habits around the world. Makes for some interesting reading especially when you are wanting to understand demographics of a readership.