Thursday 23 May 2013

Miracles, Health and Attachment - Articles from 2009

This past week, I've spent quite a few hours listening to interviews with people connected to the publishing world via www.transformationalauthor.com. The title of this post is actually a quote relayed by Hay House President and CEO, Reid Tracy.
 


Once you get through the first 10 to 20 minutes of each session, with everyone saying how wonderful they are, each interview does in fact contain some useful and informative advice on being an author and creating the right conditions for success in publishing, marketing and sales - not to mention the most important aspect of all: developing a following and readership.

One of the main surprises for me, was how much emphasis publishers put on authors to develop the market for their own books.  Various online publishers offer packages for authors and to be honest, all of them seem to offer what I can already do pretty well on my own - yet none of them offer what I really need - help with finding a readership.  So anyway, I now realise that 80% of "marketing" is down to me alone.  Bugger then!

I think it was Alvin Toffler, in his book 'Future Shock', who stated that cultural change in society took 15 years.  Of course, when he wrote this, we didn't have Internet access and the World Wide Web.  I used to be involved with the development of e-learning in education and by the time we got to 2005, I suggested that traditional change time had been reduced to about 5 years.  Now in 2013, I would revise this down to 2 years in many areas of social acceptance of change.  I mention this in relation to the 'overnight success' quote.  It's already been shown that for some people, gaining overnight success has been a reality.  For example, think about some of the 'viral' videos on YouTube, people who have produced amazingly successful Apps for mobile devices, and kids who have suddenly produced a great IT idea from home. 

The real challenge in today's world isn't becoming "famous", it's staying noticed once you have been discovered!  We now live in a transient world where longevity is facing extinction.  Attention spans are shorter and the need for refreshed gratification in everything we experience means that (if you are an individual) trying to come up with and offering something new to the same people is going to burn you out.  Therefore, your most realistic wish should probably be in the area of expansion outwards of your key offerings to reach and touch new people who will embrace them.

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