Ask and ye shall receive. We’ve all heard the words but do we really understand them?
The lyrics to John Lennon’s Watching the Wheels also tell us perfectly:
People asking questions lost in confusion, Well I tell them there’s no problem,
Only solutions
Life speaks the answer. If we are ready to listen, we will hear it. It may not always come in the form that we expect but the solution is always there.
So I have written three books and I am self-publishing them on Amazon. Yes, this is shameless promotion- look on the side bar and you will see my Amazon links. For less than a Grande Gingerbread Latte, you can have a great read. Please click and purchase.
But I digress…
The real reason for writing this post was to tell you another story. One of my questions (and therefore a problem) as an author and how I found an answer.
Back to the books. Okay, so I wrote my stories down and I want people to experience and enjoy them. So I published them. I put them on Amazon (the market) and that’s all I have to do, right?
Wrong.
How do you sell anything? Marketing. Really? But why? Why do I need to market my books?
I was in a conundrum. First of all, not embracing marketing (self- promotion) as a tool to disseminate my product and second of all, not knowing anything about marketing. So feeling disheartened with these issues weighing heavily on my mind, I decided to divert my attention to something else: my gut.
Yes. That’s right. Food. I needed to go grocery shopping for my family. So I went to the supermarket with my youngest son in tow. He scampered off to obtain his biweekly gallon of milk for consumption (no wonder why he is six feet tall and still growing) and his other junk food (he can eat this and still has a 26 inch waist- beanpole boy) whilst I gathered the healthy produce of fruits and veggies. When he returned with his items, I noticed he had a box of donuts.
“Donuts? I thought you liked those fruit-filled pastries,” I stated when I saw his new choice for breakfast.
“No, these glazed yeast rings looked better,” was his reply.
“What?”
“Glazed yeast rings. Look.” He showed me the top of the container.
Sure enough. There it was. Glazed yeast rings, 12 count. Silly me; it looked like a dozen donuts. I don’t know about you but I like that phrase better. I know what donuts are. Not so sure about glazed yeast rings. If the box hadn’t been clear plastic, I don’t know that he (or me for that matter) would have picked them up and purchased them.
A clear example of marketing. Key words, descriptions and pictures are important if your audience doesn’t know about your product. Without knowing or seeing the donuts there, how or why would you buy them? Unless, of course, you were familiar with glazed yeast rings.
A simple, beautiful solution presented to me about marketing by experiencing everyday life in going to the ‘market’.
Well, all this writing has made me hungry. Now where did I put that darn Pug mug? A cup of coffee and a glazed yeast ring sounds real good right now.
