Attitude Adjustment #4
Start where you are, and you’re already half-way there
Change isn’t a race, but it is a journey. To travel from shy writer to fearless promoter begins with a simple step. It begins by saying, “Hi, my name is… and I write about…”
Start where you are, with what’s comfortable. As writing is your comfort zone, start with promotional arenas that are writing based. Get more active on twitter and Facebook to connect with people, and send them to your blog. If you haven’t got a blog, create one. Or if you’re blogging occasionally, start blogging regularly. And don’t forget to put an opt-in offer on your blog, of either the first chapter of your book or a 7 tips ebook, to get people to sign up for your newsletter or ezine list. An opt-in offer will get more people to sign-up for your list, than just having a place where people can sign up for your newsletter (I know this from experience, because it took me two years of wanting an opt-in offer, before I actually had the courage to create one).
Start promoting yourself with what’s most comfortable for you. There’s no need to jump straight into making videos or giving live interviews, but you do have to make a conscious effort to get your promotional wheels rolling by taking small steps, one after another. The more you get used to putting yourself out in front of people, even in the smallest of ways, the easier it will be to gently nudge yourself into taking a step, here and there, beyond your comfort zone.
It doesn’t take more than a slight reaching past your comfort zone to get some momentum going towards becoming more fearless, and you never know how it’s going to help or where it’s going to lead. In early 2008, I was looking for a way to start promoting myself, and I chose twitter. When I joined, I thought I needed to give people a reason to follow me, so I offered a daily creativity tip for writers. It made me nervous to make a daily commitment, and put myself out there rather than offering quotes from famous writers, but I did it. My tips were only a sentence or two each, but they changed my life.
Those tips came straight from my heart, and every day I would hear from different people about how much that day’s tip helped them, or how it was exactly what they needed to hear to move forward with their writing. My twitter followers started recommending me (this was long before #followfriday), and even wrote blog posts about my tips, recommending that their blog readers follow me. Someone dubbed me “the creativity maven.” My twitter followers grew from hundreds to thousands.
I joined twitter because Facebook intimated me, and its 140 character tweet limit made it seem easy and safe. Yet, tweet by tweet those 200 writing tips, and the response they received, catapulted my confidence and visibility to a whole new level.
You never know where the next step outside your comfort zone is going to take you, but in order to find out you have to take that step.
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- What promotion are you already doing?
- Of your current promotional efforts, what can you do more often?
- What new promotional steps can you take, that are within your comfort zone?
- What new promotional steps can you take that will stretch you a little?
To read the whole series:
