Getting Down to Business

I've just completed my Business course. It was actually a lot more fun than I expected, and I learned a great deal. With any luck I'll be starting a Cert IV in Small Business Management and Marketing course soon. It's a correspondence course, though, and I'll have two years to complete it, so I'll have more time for other things too (like writing).

I've got two really big projects that I'm working on. Well... as far as marketing goes. I'm helping my husband start his rock climbing gym business (it's been a dream of his for years), and of course with me being the writer I get to write his business plan. I'll also be handling the marketing side of things for him. I'm really excited about it. It's definitely something that is needed in our area and I know it will really take off once we get things up and running.

And of course my big dream... to have my own marketing consultancy (and possibly in the future expand into publishing) business that caters to writers... especially new and self-published writers. I don't know... maybe I'm just too picky, but I can't stand that publishing companies only cater to writers and authors who are best sellers where marketing and promotion is concerned. It's probably silly of me, but you know if I spent thousands of dollars publishing and printing a novel or nonfiction book, I'd certainly want to promote it and get as many sales out of it as possible. Just seems sort of logical to me...

It's okay, though... my mother taught me an important lesson in my life. If you want something done right, then you should do it yourself (or find someone who is really, really good at it). So I'm going to get really, really good at marketing and help as many writers as I can because I know how hard this industry can be... and well I love marketing and promotion just as much as I love writing. It's been a hobby of mine for longer than I've been writing, so it's about time I make a career of it.

I'm still writing, though!

I'm still working on the Shadow Stalker series, although I'm having some technical difficulties with it. It didn't occur to me, when I started on this venture, how hard it would be to end a story with a good balance of tying up loose ends to give the story a sense of completion while keeping my readers hanging just enough to want them to come back for more. I've decided (probably foolishly, but we'll see what happens) to finish the whole series as one story and then figure out where I want to end one book in the series and start another. I also figured it would help with the continuity too. Less chance of forgetting an important detail or coming up with a wonderful idea that inadvertently causes a discrepancy with the prior book(s).

This is a new blog, so I'm still working on getting info up about Shadow Stalker, but it is coming for those who haven't heard of it yet. I'm also working on a new website too... I told you... it's a new start for me!