LA and the Spring Literary Cafe

What better way to kick off the long awaited for spring season with a literary cafe!

It'd been awhile since I had a speaking engagement but it was good practice for the promotions I'll be doing for the new novel slated for release this fall. Now I'm even more anxious about all that I have lined up for Reconciliation to Hell.

Stay tuned...

Talk about Happy Friday

Last Friday was a good day. At my day job I had the opportunity to participate as a vendor in which the proceeds were to benefit our company's United Way Giving Campaign. It's funny that I ordered 10 copies of my book a couple of weeks ago in preparation for the event and I planned on ordering some more but time got away from me. Anyway, the morning of the event I found myself to be a nervous wreck! Why? I don't know considering it was my very coworkers who would patronizing me along with the other participating vendors. Well, before I could even set up my table good I'd made a sell of two books! Immediately, I became nervous that I didn't have enough books if that was indicative of how my sells were going to go for the day. Luckily, I had two more copies sitting in the cabinet at my desk. By the end of the day I sold all my inventory of books! I was ecstatic. My weekend was definitely off to a great start. And to top it all off, not only did I have promotional items available with all of my contact & book information,  I even remembered to have available a mailing list for passer bys and those who purchased the book so I can keep them abreast on my work. Girlfriend is stepping up her game, right???

Internet Marketing Lesson

Yesterday I was listening to the Michigan Literary Network Blogtalk radio. Admittedly, I don't do this often enough considering the show airs every Wednesday. Anyway, yesterday was a great day to tune in because the topic of discussion is my WEAKEST LINK--marketing & promotion. Penny Sansivieri was one of the guest. She's the author of Red Hot Internet Marketing which I'd never heard of but after hearing how this is a must have for EVERY writer/author I quickly ordered it off the Internet. I should have it in a couple of days and I can't wait!

As far as marketing goes I'm going in the right direction just at a snails pace. I blog, as you can see. I have a website that I hope you've visited :) I'm on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. I'm a member of a gazillion Yahoo groups. All of this stuff is what I've learned that writers need to grow their readership and keep them engaged. Well I have them but I've been kind of laxed with putting them to work so here's what I've done in the last couple of weeks:

1. Created a fanpage on Facebook for my book Unfinished Business.
2. Created an author page for Facebook.
3. Creating a reader & writer newsletter. I actually created one a few years ago but I dropped the ball with keeping it going and pushing it towards my audience.

Coming up next will be the book trailer of Unfinished Business. Stay tuned!

Summer Update 2010

It's 2 o'clock in the morning and my sleep was rudely interrupted so I figured since I'm awake I'd post to my block since I haven't done so in about a month. If you read my previous post you know that I challenged myself to finish the first draft of my upcoming book, Reconciliation to Hell, by the end of the summer/beginning of school. Well, while I'm not even close to the end of the book I am, however, at the end of the first chapter. I know it's nothing to shout about but a girl's gotta celebrate the small milestones too, right? Since I'm in a celebratory mood, I might as well mention a couple of other milestones for a local self-published author pursuing literary stardom. After nearly 5 years of being a member of Motown Writers Network, a network of primarily metro-Detroit writers & authors, I finally attended the annual Literary Meet & Greet, an event providing local authors a forum to introduce themselves to the community of readers and writers. And get this...not only did I attend the event, I also had promotion material available! Believe me, that's a pretty big deal. As an author I'm an entreprenuer of myself, my product and I've got to treat it as such. I've got to advertise, advertise, advertise every opportunity I get...like at the African World Festival this weekend. I didn't pass out as many of my flyers as I should have but I did give a few out. Anyway, the Literary Meet & Greet proved beneficial for a number of reasons. For one, I had the opportunity to speak about myself and my book. For two, I met a book reviewer and an Internet radio host who has openings for guests. Lastly, I was inspired to keep perservearing to be my #1 promoter and keep at it. Practice makes perfect, right?

Now, before I get too sleepy I better pull out my document and see what progress I can make in the next hour that I plan to be awake

What's an Author To Do?

Okay, for a minute there my books were selling like hotcakes! At work I was selling like 2-3 books a day as the word spread about my recently published novel. It was really cool! Things have slowed down quite a bit, but that was to be expected. What I didn't expect to learn is that, rather than some people buying their own copy, they've been reading a book purchased by someone else. WTF??? One coworker was walking past me the other day, and she was like, "Girl, I didn't know you wrote a book." Then I'm thinking, cool, she wants to buy one. WRONG! Then she says, "Yeah, so and so gave me a copy and I was like, L.A. Jefferson...that woman on the back cover looks just like LaCharmine. Then OHHHH that is LaCharmine. I'm liking it so far..." While I was glad she was enjoying it, I would have much rather preferred she bought her own. But, it happens, I know. I, myself, have borrowed someone else's copy of a book. Not because I was too cheap to buy my own, but because they offered it to me. Soooo I won't cry over spilled milk. What I will do is push my book sales even harder to compensate for the those darn book sharers!

The Heat is On!

Not literally speaking, but definitely figuratively. On this 30th day of June in Michigan, when the temps have not quite reached 65 degrees, I'm definitely feeling the heat of the match that's been lit beneath me. It's the match of marketing and promoting Unfinished Business.

It was said to me a few years ago that in due time I would find the process of writing my book to be a breeze once I moved on to promotion and marketing. Well, they weren't lying.

Right now, I'm actively putting together the official release party for the book, hopefully to commence in August. I've incorporated the help of a professional public relations person.

In the meantime, as the word has been getting out to those closest to me, I've sold a few copies. Received some positive feedback from a couple who read it :)

I'm figuring, my family and friends shouldn't hear about the publication of my book at the same time as the general public, so I've decided to do "Friends & Family" book release before the official one. That'll be pretty east to put together. Ohmigod, there's just so much to do, it's overwhelming, BUT exciting!

I'm also working on filling my calendar with as many networking opportunties as possible. The first will be at an event called "Martini's & Manuscripts" taking place on July 22 at the Renaissance in downtown Detroit. This event will feature self-published authors such as myself. The purpose of the event is for aspiring writers (where I used to be), to network and get advice from the pros from writing to publishing, to marketing. Since I just found out about the event a couple of days ago, I could only get on the waitlist, at this point, but I'll be there, nonetheless, getting my "network" on!

If interested in attending this event, you purchase tickets at the following site-- http://www.eventbrite.com/search?loc=&q=martini%27s+and+manuscripts.

I'll update this page accordingly if I become one of the featured authors.

Much love & Happy Reading!

L.A. Jefferson