Hello, lovelies!
It’s time to party. Literally.
I’m launching a new book, LITTLE RED AND THE SURLY BEAR, and I’m hosting a party with giveaways and all of that fun stuff over on Facebook, Instagram, and twitter.
Okay, I’ll try to limit the cheese, but I’m trying something new-ish, and that’s scary, so I’m compensating. Can anyone relate?
Since we like to be as transparent as possible here, I wanted to use this celebration as an opportunity to offer more value than simply toting my new novella. And I wanted to talk about author doubt, about the pressure to do all of the things, about fostering community instead of sales, about what so many of us are afraid to address because we’re creative, we live in other worlds, we don’t want to be business people.
Okay, some of us want to be business people. I’ll try not to dump a lot of absolutes here. There are a lot of parts to running a business that are so incredibly fun and rewarding. Sales though…
Y’all. I’m not a salesman.
I suck at it.
Big time.
And researching book marketing techniques and tools and businesses is overwhelming. Not only are there intricacies to each style or platform that takes time and money to test, but there’s the pressure to do all of the things. Post regularly on every social platform in existence. Continuously create content that’s engaging and offers value. Rapid write, edit, and publish novels to keep relevant and play with Amazon algorithms, get beta readers and reviewers set up for a launch. Hit up every newsletter, blog, or website that will post about your book to their audience.
All of this in hopes that someone will buy the book.
Here is where we get hit with a reality check. Will anyone actually read it?
I hear this a lot from authors. We doubt ourselves. Am I not a good writer because my book isn’t selling? Should I give up all together? Should I just focus on something new?
Recently, as I’ve allowed myself to focus on writing more and participating in the industry-related side hustles that I enjoy (like #authortube and writing challenges), and this has made me look at all of the rest with new eyes.
Yes, I want to sell more books. Every author does. The dream is to sustain a life on the craft. And that means marketing and sales.
But what I really want is a community. To not be too busy posting things everywhere (like I have been the last week) and speeding through the process to get more books out and piling my plate so high with all of the opportunities to sell instead of talking to people, learning from each other, and making real connections.
Because when I think about why I wanted to publish my writing—instead of simply writing for myself as I did for a long, long time, it’s not to be rich and famous and to have people adore me from afar. Besides the fact that celebrities have just as many if not more problems than we do, it’s not exactly the dream. I write because I want to make people feel something. I want them to think about an idea or perspective in a new way. I want to connect to them on a level that I couldn’t do without telling them a story.
Man, I hope this makes sense.
I hope that you can relate.
I hope that it helps to know that someone else feels this way.
So, yeah. I’m putting another book out into the ether. One that means a lot because of who helped me create the characters and the world and the reality that underlies the fiction on page, and here’s your invitation to come celebrate with me. You don’t have to buy anything from me, but I’d love to get to know you!
Stop in and say hi.
Wife of a disabled veteran, Alisha Costanzo writes about PTSD, environmentalism, violence, and conformity. With a mutually-fueled passion to change the world one person at a time, she often writes about her husband’s rants, conspiracy theories, and trains of logic that seem absurd until the connections line up, and mixes them into her obsession with cooking, coffee, and pop-culture monsters.
Most of all, Alisha is passionate about satire and how it can be used as a tool for learning and criticism. Her stories are aware of themselves and determined not to give readers what they think they want.
A New York transplant, she lives in Oklahoma, teaches English and rhetoric at a local university, runs and edits at Transmundane Press, LLC, and navigates the crazy that comes with her husband, fifteen-year-old step son, six cats, six lizards, so many mice, three toads, two snakes, and a water turtle in the master bath, all confined under one roof.
Transmundane Press 