Thomas: In this episode, we're talking about three marketing mindsets to adopt for the rest of the year, plus the goals you should set to make 2017 the best ever.
Jim: Last episode we talked getting an author headshot, which is very practical. This time we're talking mindset, which can feel a little squishy. Mindset is in our heads. It's the way we think. But our perspective, the way we look at each day and the rest of the year, is critical to our success.
Mindset 1: Promote yourself everywhere and anywhere.
Jim: You never know when someone is going to come along who could get your book selling like wildfire, or help you significantly with your career and your promotion. When I travel, I interact with a gate agent who asks, "How are you doing today?" I say, "Well, I'm living my dream." They ask what I mean, and I tell them since I was a kid I wanted to be a novelist, and I'm just wrapping up writing my ninth novel. People are intrigued. I hand them a card. I've done this for seven years, and I still get emails from people who say they picked up one of my books and loved it.
Think about promoting yourself everywhere you go. You never know when you're going to run into another reader.
Thomas: That way of engaging with people is way more positive than what they normally get. Most people are grumbly and complaining, but if you look at the world as full of people who might buy your book, it forces you to be nicer to people.
Jim: I'm traditionally published, so whenever I travel, I go into the Barnes & Noble and check if my books are on the shelf. If they are, I ask to talk to the store manager. Store managers get more complaints than compliments, so I just thank them for carrying my books. The reality is the manager doesn't decide whether to carry the books, but the fact that I interact with them and thank them has led to managers saying, "We've got to get you out on the front table." Any chance you have to interact with people and tell them about your dream, without being pushy about it, good things can come of it.
Thomas: The key is doing it in a way that brightens someone's day. Your attitude should be one of thankfulness, gratitude, and optimism, not desperation. There's no perfume called Desperation. It's not attractive, and it will turn people away. But thankfulness and optimism make it easier to sell your book.
Mindset 2: Drop the excuses.
Jim: Another mindset we want to encourage is dropping the excuses. This isn't about being negative. It's okay if you don't want to write. If you're beating yourself up saying, "I need to write, I need to write," and you're not doing it, maybe just say, "I'm putting this aside for six months." In my twenties and thirties, I kept telling myself I wanted to write, and one day my wife told me, "Jim, this might not be your season, and that's okay." That was actually freeing.
But if it is your season and you know it, that's where you have to say, "I'm giving up the show. I'll only binge on one show this season, and the rest of the time I'm going to write." Give up that twenty minutes of extra sleep in the morning. Get up and write. You need to decide in your mind how important this is. Is it truly a priority?
Mindset 3: Find your confidence.
Thomas: The third mindset is finding your confidence. Once you're more positive and no longer making excuses, it's time to actually believe you can do it.
Jim: This is the hardest mindset to hold onto. I'd love to tell you that after nine novels I believe in myself, but I don't. You have to get up every morning and consciously choose to say, "I can't control my circumstances, but I can control what I let into my mind and how I perceive my circumstances." That makes the difference between being a successful novelist or not. It's saying, "I can do this. I've been designed to do this. This is my desire, my destiny. I'm going to take the next step, and the next, and the next."
Now that I'm further along in my career, I can look back and tell myself I've done it nine times before, so I can probably do it again. But when I was starting out, I still had to choose to believe I'd been called to be a writer and step into that. I believe we can control how we think, and I choose to believe this is something I can do.
Thomas: There's a moment in The Return of the King where the Riders of Rohan are gathering to fight an orc army. They're saying they don't have enough spears or enough men, there's no way they can defeat the armies of Mordor. Someone reports this to the king, and he says, "Yes, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless." I love that attitude. Whatever your negative mindset is telling you, "I don't have what it takes to write this book," the answer is, "Yes, but I'm going to write the book nonetheless."
That "just make it happen" attitude is empowering. It's like, so what, this is what has to happen. You don't want your life to end without this book, without the story going out into the world to make a difference. So do it nonetheless. Find your inner Rider of Rohan.
Jim: I love that, Thomas, because it supports the idea that emotion follows action, not the other way around. Novelists are creative, emotional people, which is what makes our stories powerful. But we get caught in our own web of emotion, thinking we have to feel good about ourselves before we start writing, instead of starting to write and then feeling good about ourselves.
Thomas: One of my mentors kept telling me it's a lot easier to act your way into a new way of feeling than to feel your way into a new way of acting. If you control your actions, your feelings often follow. Emotions are how we give context to the world. They don't define us, they're how we define the world around us, and different cultures have different concepts of what emotions are. If you're not ruled by your emotions, you'll find you do a lot more writing and you're a lot happier with the writing you do.
Mindset 4: Play.
Jim: Here's a bonus mindset, and it might be the most important one. When we were kids, given crayons or Legos, or doing a tea party, we were creating, and we wouldn't call it work. We'd call it play. Play with your stories. Be on the playground. Be having the tea party. Be working with the Legos or the crayons. Play.
Thomas: Making it fun and enjoying it really does change the way you see it. Something that could feel scary becomes fun if you approach it with an attitude of play. A four-year-old writes stories without any fear of the editor or the audience. I recently read a story written by a four-year-old, simple sentences, giant crayon-scratched font, but it was a real story. She wrote what she knew, about going to Disney World, and it had some drama.
Find that inner four-year-old, the artist who isn't afraid. The more you connect with that sense of childlike wonder, the easier writing becomes. Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven this way too, that you have to be like a child to enter it. It's true of writing as well. Especially as a novelist, that sense of whimsy, exploration, and discovery will help you a great deal.
Goal #1: Review your website.
Jim: All right, Thomas, we've talked about four mindsets for the rest of the year. Let's talk about three concrete goals.
Thomas: Concrete goal number one is to review your website. Look for things you can improve, and try to see it through the eyes of someone who's never visited before. WooRank and Website Grader are two good online tools that will grade your website and point out things to fix. It's also worth listening to our past episodes on author websites and incorporating some of that into your site this year.
Goal #2: Review your social media profiles.
Jim: Goal number two is to review your social media profiles on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or wherever else you're active. You might find your profile photo is three or four years old and needs updating. Looking with a critical eye, you'll spot things that should change.
One thing you can do is bring in someone who isn't especially social-media savvy and ask them what impressions they get. Thomas and I do this for each other all the time. I also do it with my wife, since she isn't in publishing and notices things even people in the industry, like Thomas, would miss.
Thomas: We're not saying you need to spend a lot of time actively posting content if that's not part of your strategy, just make sure your profiles are up to date. Consider this your friendly reminder to change your profiles the way you'd change the batteries in your smoke detectors.
Goal #3: Go to a conference.
Thomas: Finally, consider going to a conference. If it's been a while since you attended a writers' conference, now is a great time to get refreshed, recharged, encouraged, and educated. You'd be surprised how many conferences are near you. Local, smaller conferences tend to be less expensive and give you more access to the speakers, but the bigger ones are worth considering too.
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