Are you ready for an adventure?

I most certainly am.  My life changed drastically last year.  I entered the world of retirement.  After 35 plus years of getting up every Monday through Friday to be at a specific place at a specific time and do something for a specific person, I’m free!!!  Free to do something else; something meaningful; something rewarding; something unique.

So I sat out on my little adventure of writing books.  My first creation was to make a whole new world for a little bug.  How did I do this you might be asking?

Make a plan

First, I had to make a plan.  I had always had a dream of writing a book but I was always too intimidated to try.  I felt like I couldn’t do it because I was not educated in this field.  But my dream outweighed my skepticism.  After much thought I decided to try my hand at writing children’s books and created the main character.  Then I mapped out my plan:

1) Write a series of five books – The Adventures of Danny Cricket (Volumes One through Five) was born. They are unique books in that they have adventure, are inspirational, offer diversity and offer a bit of history for the reader.

2) Hire an illustrator – First things first.  How do I find one? Then which one do I hire?

3) Find a publisher – Whether or not to self-publish or go the traditional route was the real question.

4) Market the books – There’s so much marketing options. Which ones were best for my books?

5) Set up business – Do you want to play around or are you serious?  Well, I was serious so I took this on and the rest is history.

Implement your plan

My plan with the above five steps has a lot of fine details and that’s what I’m working on implementing.  I’ll admit the marketing has been the hard part and not so fun at times.  My desire is to write so I gravitate to that activity more often than marketing.  But, you have control over this so put it on paper then just keep going.  Find whatever it is that motivates you to push forward and do that one thing first thing in the morning when you get up.

Revise your plan

Sometimes the best laid plans just don’t pan out like you had thought or hoped they would.  Example, part of my marketing plan was to participate in book festivals and fairs.  The first book festival which was actually my debut was sponsored by an ice cream parlor in a shopping plaza (there were other sponsors but this was the main one).  Mainly local authors were invited to come.  There was nominal fee for authors and very few limitations on how big or small your set up could be.  I gave it the works.  Sold a fair amount of books and loved the experience.  The next book festival had a $125 fee for emerging authors and you dropped your books off and competed with all of the other new authors, and you were prohibited from being in the tent.  To say the least my books were lost among all of the other books out there.  So, when you examine your plan capitalize on what has worked and what has not.  Until you start making real money I’d recommend you stay away from things that have proven to cost you more money than you make.

Next week

I’ll talk about writing your first book.  Where do you start? Who should you consult with, etc.

Want to win a signed copy of the first three chapters of my new novel scheduled to be out by the end of 2014?  “Share” the Contest Post on my author FB page  https://www.facebook.com/AnnetteRBurrell and/or retweet the Contest post on my twitter page @burrellanet

Want a unique children’s book?  Look for The Adventures of Danny Cricket on Amazon.com and other on-line retailers.