Just a little over two weeks ago, I made a firm commitment to post a blog on this website each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. (I would then post a blog on http://pianos5th.com each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.)
And for two weeks I did just that. But today, things changed, as seems to happen all too often in my life. Actually, the change began last Saturday when I was Googling and checking out YouTube videos about blogging. I found a great video that got me all excited about using blogs to find followers, subscribers, and ultimately customers.
Then I had to realize that what I wanted to sell (my books) is no longer ready to be sold.
It happened this way. I wrote a book entitled Tivoli’s Christmas back in the late 1980s. I sent it out to lots of publishers but only received standard, pre-printed rejection notices. Then, in 2007, a friend of mine decided to start his own independent publishing company. For his first project, he published Tivoli’s Christmas. It came out in 2008. Then, for 2009 and 2010 he published The Mystery of the Grinning Buddha and The Mystery of the Ugly Bottle, respectively.
It was really exciting – except for one thing. I soon learned that it was my responsibility to market my own books. Barnes & Noble and Borders wouldn’t carry it. They only carried books distributed by Baker and Taylor or Ingrams. A few local bookstores did carry them on consignment, but they had no apparent motivation to move them. Eventually I gave up on them and retrieved the books I had placed. In the end, I marketed my books to my friends and family.
Several years later, my publisher friend concluded that even after publishing around 20 books he still had not figured out how to make money as an independent publisher. He stopped publishing and broke his ties with Amazon as far as carrying my books.
Meanwhile, another friend of mine helped me publish my first three books as Kindle books. Two more books and I now have five books available through Kindle. But, my paperback versions of my first four books are not available as paperbacks. My fifth book is.
So, I am going to stop blogging three times a week and put that time, plus lots more, into re-editing all five books and making sure they are available as paperback books through Amazon and others.
It doesn’t make sense for me to search out followers. subscribers, and customers when the products I want to have available are not – available.
From time to time I will publish a post, if for no other reason than to let anyone who finds my website know what is going on at my end of things.
Beforehand, thanks for your patience.
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