Build it…and they will come!

If you’re reading this, you’re on my new website. Welcome! Take a look around, and let me know if you run into any glitches. In theory all the contacts have been transferred from the old site, but I’ll be looking for confirmation. So, if you get this via email, send me a note to say you’ve got it!

The project began when I started reading about authors who successfully sell their books on their own sites, bypassing Amazon. That was my primary goal, and Shifting Currents is now available directly from the “shop” page, in both paperback and ebook. (The paperback is still available on Amazon.)  But with Jack the Enthusiast in charge, the project expanded to include all you see here. And now that it’s here, it seems to call for some promotion—never my strong point.

 

I squirmed with discomfort and was reminded of an early business venture in which I failed spectacularly. That was a long time ago, and the product for sale was muffins. Now I’m sitting at a friend’s kitchen, our laptops open in front of us. She’s giving me a lesson and a pep-talk on using social media more effectively.

To what end? You might ask.

Well, here’s the thing. Even though they might tell you otherwise, people who write usually want readers. A few years ago I announced to the world, via this blog, that I was “reinventing myself” as a writer (that would be, to the several dozen people in the world who were attuned to my announcements).

Ta-dah! If you build it, they will come. So I built a book. I built a lot of blog posts. I built a few short stories. You’d think I’d have learned something from that long-ago adventure with mmmarvelous mmmuffins.

Gino—a small, wiry guy who oozed something that I’m sure he thought was charm—arrived from the head office to assist with the opening.

He tried his best to teach me the basics of marketing. I was a reluctant student. When the local newspaper arrived to interview me about this new enterprise, Gino stepped in and lied about the number of employees. Ten, he said. I tried to correct him. I scolded him when the interviewer left. Seven, not ten. And mostly part time.

He scolded me back. “You have to make it sound more impressive. That’s how business works.”

I’m still a reluctant student, as my social-media-savvy friend can confirm. I’m sure she knows I’m a hopeless case, but she pours me another cup of coffee and tries again. The idea is to get people to follow you, to share what you post with their friends, she explains. You need to have a mailing list, try posting on Throw-Back-Thursdays, use hashtags to reach potential readers.

“But…I don’t want to annoy people by posting all the time,” I said.

She says not to worry, but I do. I want to encourage followers, but I don’t want to be one of those pesky perpetual posters any more than I wanted to shove muffins in the faces of people who might have preferred a donut.

When muffins didn’t fly out at the rate we’d expected for opening day, Gino decided the problem was that nobody had noticed us. Nobody had noticed the huge blue and yellow sign. Nobody had noticed the aroma of freshly-baked muffins. Nobody had noticed the smiling sales girl in her blue and white baker’s hat.

“Maybe they just don’t want muffins,” I said.

He looked at me as though I’d lost my last marble.

By the end of the first week, I already knew: I really didn’t care if people ate muffins. In fact, when—rarely—customers crowded around the counter, I became claustrophobic and annoyed. I wanted to shout, “Shoo! Go! Buy a donut! Buy a waffle!”

That was more than thirty years ago. I didn’t stay in business for long.

Now, following the advice of my media-savvy advisor, I should tell you that if you want to read the whole essay about the muffins fiasco, which I shared last weekend at the Stories in the North evening show, just send me a note and you’ll get it.

Okay. Squirm. I can do that. pauladunning@embajadoraspress.com