In June 2019 I released my first book. It was a painful memoir to end the silence I had kept for decades. The next two years I released eight non-fiction motivational books. The words in these books are my whispers to myself over the years, to help me keep going when I wanted to give up. They are my whispers in the wind.
Earlier this year, I struggled with marketing my writing. I will always write, it is who I am and how I breath. I took down all my social media accounts, loosing 40k followers, and took my books off of Amazon.
The message was clear... With minimal interaction and book sales hovering around zero, it was clear that my writing wasn't what people wanted... or I was inept at marketing my books to my target audience. That realization didn't bring tears or depression, it brought determination. The few reviews I had were all positive. Marketing skills could be learned and improved. My writing skills would continue to improve.
So while I haven't been on social media, I have been extremely busy with my writing, research, and learning new skills. Recently, I started a few social media accounts back up. Starting from zero again, has been an enlightening experience. My focus is no longer on likes or comments, but rather in learning the nuances of social media marketing.
I've been researching and learning about the efficiency of bots. How to appropriately use them. I now put everything on my website, and then filter it out to social media using bot technology. This allows me to put greater focus, energy, and time into content creation and engagement.
I've found new social media platforms which I am learning how to navigate on. I'm learning how to do e-learning courses. My perspective has been fine tuned, to place my focus on the destination.
Today I am putting some finishing work on several of my books and will begin again to market them with what I have learned. My focus is about learning the nuances to market my books and to get feedback on how to improve.
I have thirty some years to figure all this out. I just need to focus on taking one step at a time.