Sell Your Self-Published Book the DREAMS Cycle ™ Way

The masterpiece of literature that you just published won’t move off the shelf by itself. You need to let the world know that it is out there. This is where the book launch party comes into play; it was the first major action I undertook to reach my goal of selling 200 copies of my book , Frankenstein’s Science Project . “Moving forward” on actions identified in your action plan represents the first M in the DREAMS Cycle ™ as discussed in previous posts. Publicist, publishers and marketers will tell you that the book launch is the culmination of a sustained effort to market your book before it is available for broad distribution. The Book Launch Party is that fun event that celebrates your accomplishment of having published your book. It is part of a publicity campaign. The book launch party for an author is a bit like a wedding party. You invite all your friends and family to celebrate a major achievement. Here are a couple articles on book launch parties: Writer’s Digest ...

Photo by   Pixabay  from  Pexels When I joined the Ottawa Independent Writers (OIW) in the fall of 2016, I had never heard of a book reading. A few months later, the OIW advertised that they would have a poem reading at the Christmas Party. I am not a poet and I was not available the day of the party, so I missed out on the readings. The next spring, I participated in the OIW Writer’s Workshop. It was held in the beautiful village of Westport, Ontario, right by the lake. During the workshop, there was an evening dedicated to readings. This would be my first reading ever. I selected a flash fiction story, Take It Away Sam , that I had written the previous year and that was published online on the Flash Fiction Press website. When it was my turn to read, I was surprised at how nervous I was. I regularly present in front of audiences of up to 100 for my job, but this was a new context and I doubted my writing and delivery skills. My nervousness brought out some ol...

Photo by Lisa Fotio on Pexel Selling your self-published book to your family and friends sounds so easy. Just ask your spouse, kids, parents, uncles and aunts, and close friends to buy your masterpiece. In reality, I found this more challenging than I expected. As I am not selling my book to make money and I have a well-paying job, I found it difficult to ask my family and friends to purchase a book from me. Based on my goal of selling 200 copies of my children’s book , Frankenstein’sScience Project , my action plan included approaching my family members and friends to distribute copies of my book. The first person I approached was actually the illustrator for the book, Alex Bjelica . He was not really a friend, but a working colleague on the book. After my book was officially published in January 2018 through Lulu , I sent Alex a free copy of the book. He had done such a wonderful job on the illustrations, that he deserved a copy. When he received his copy, he thought th...

 https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-reading-book-256455/ My goals for selling my self-published book, Frankenstein’s Science Project , have now been set, as described in a previous post : I will sell 200 copies of Frankenstein’s Science Project within 2 years of the published date. I will get 25 reviews of Frankenstein’s Science Project on Amazon, Goodreads or Google Books within 2 years of the published date. Now, I need to determine what it takes to sell a book and to get reviews. This is the first “A” in the DREAMS Cycle ™ which stands for Acquire Knowledge. To gain insight, I searched the web, read blogs, watched YouTube videos and joined the Ottawa Independent Writers . Here is a list of wonderful resources: How to Promote and Sell Your Self-Published Book 5 Things This Self-Published Author Did to Sell Over 20,000 Books With Almost No Money 7 Book Marketing Lessons for the Self-Published Author I Wrote A Book – But It Won’t Sell – Here’s How T...

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels You want to sell a million copies of your book because of your desire to share your stories with the world. What a wonderful and invigorating desire! Now is time to face reality. To paraphrase John Lennon , reality is what happens when you’re busy trying to sell your book. Reality represents the second R in the DREAMS Cycle ™ . Reality reflects what is happening in your life that will impact the achievement of your dreams. Two dimensions of reality need to be considered: The Dice of Life and the 5 L’s of Life.   The Dice of Life The Dice of Life is just a metaphor for what life throws at you. More importantly, just like a dice, it has six facets that represent the six elements that will allow you to reach your dreams and desires. The six elements are: money , time , energy , opportunity , talent and support , in no particular order. In your lifetime, and at any particular time, these elements will be available to you in a certain...

Photo by Tamás  Mészáros from Pexels Deep down, wouldn’t we all love to sell a million copies of our book. That is certainly a dream I have for my self-published book, Frankenstein’s Science Project . Once my book was published through Lulu Press in January 2018, it was time to focus on marketing and selling this masterpiece. Publishers and successful authors recommend starting your marketing campaign 6-9 months before publishing . I had done some marketing activities prior to publishing the book, like creating an author website at www.normanmarcotte.com and an author page on Facebook. Unfortunately, I ran out of time for marketing activities as I really wanted to publish my book early in 2018 to coincide with the 200 th anniversary of the writing of the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley . When I was ready to sell my book, I decided to follow the DREAMS Cycle ™ process. The start of the DREAMS Cycle ™ is D for “Dreams and Desires” as mentioned in a previou...

I resigned from my job for love. The year was 1995 and I decided to move from Kingston to Ottawa to join my future wife. The move also provided an opportunity to redirect my life and career from a research scientist to a more people-oriented profession. I returned to graduate school at the University of Ottawa to study Educational Counselling. One of the courses I completed as part of my degree was on counseling approaches. The major assignment for the course consisted of developing your own personal counseling model. After much soul-searching, I created the DREAM cycle approach. DREAM was an acronym for Dreams, Reality, Explore options, Action plan, and Monitor. The visual that I associated with the DREAM cycle was of a bicycle, which was appropriate at the time as I was heavily involved in triathlons. The spoke on the wheels of the bicycle represented the letters of the acronym, while the wheel represented a continuous cycle. The bicycle also meant to indicate that the perso...