MENTORING ME

A few weeks ago the man I love most in the world contacted a mentoring service on my behalf. 💞 He found just one among dozens or more mentors that help indie authors, such as myself. An appointment was made and I waited, not really knowing what to expect or how she could help. I thought I knew everything already. 🤓 I thought I was failing because I wasn't outgoing enough, and maybe my meekish manner marginalizes me and that's something I must work on, but my new mentor blew my mind! 😮

Lately I've been suffering from deep depression. It comes in bouts that last a couple of days or a couple of hours depending on who I'm with and what's going on. in the middle of one of my depressive episodes I get a call from my mentor, Toby. I completely forgot about the appointment. What she did was reach me through my depression (not easy) and teach me some stuff about being an author that I didn't know ( I thought impossible)

She talked about groups on LinkedIn where authors help authors. she says there's newsletters and advice from authors such as Sandra Beckwith, Joan Stewart and Dana Lynn Smith.

She mentioned picking the category or genre when publishing my books is extremely important. I knew that, but what I didn't know was that I should be aiming for more obscure categories rather than mainstream categories, no matter how applicable, because that helps my book stand out. 📖 If I call my book paranormal fantasy then I'm right up there against hundreds of well-known authors. If I call my books supernatural women sleuths then I don't have as much competition. Not that I see other authors as competition. People read more than one book in their lifetime and I love helping my fellow ❤️ authors.  I'm referring to pages on Amazon's search engine... Mainstream genre might put me on page 145,678 of anyone's search for paranormal fantasy. Supernatural women's sleuth might put me on page 150....

Toby went on to say that it's best to publish your book at the beginning of the year that way you get a full year of being a new book. Whereas if you publish a book in November you only get 2 months of being at a new 2019 book vs being a new 2020 book for 12 months.

She also mentioned my books being what she called evergreen books. Meaning that the books don't age and that they're just as good to read now as they were back in 2011 when I first started published them.

my homework assignment for the next few weeks:
*Get to know KDP sponsored products
*Look up those of authors I mentioned earlier
*Find the characteristics of my typical reader
*Go to LinkedIn and join some marketing groups.
*Look up some more obscure genres and see what my books could fit in rather than the mainstream paranormal thrillers or urban fantasy which is what they are now.