Build Your Brand By Teaching Others

 

 

photo by enterlinedesign via Dollar Photo Club

Two years ago I published a book not knowing anything about promotion, marketing, branding, or platform. Now I teach aspiring authors how to independently publish their own books. I let all of the knowledge I've gained over the last two years and more pour out of me, and provide them with the tools they need to get started on their own journeys. 

Establishing yourself as a writer can take many different avenues. My approach is two-pronged. Like most indie authors I have a consistent social media presence and a website and blog, all updated frequently. I'm active in online groups. I have an email list and a newsletter. But reaching out to readers and building a brand online is just one facet of my author life. Another is to build a reputation as an author within my own community. One way I do this is through teaching. This helps establish my credibility as an author, as someone who knows what she's doing, and as a leader. 

It all started when my local library invited me to teach a 90-minute seminar on self-publishing. I developed a presentation with Power Point called Adventures in Publishing: How to Independently Publish Your Own Book. Twelve people showed up. They asked lots of questions and stayed to the end. They wrote wonderful reviews. This gave me confidence to expand my program. 

 

I added additional content and graphics and beefed it up to two hours. I knew once I had a polished program I could present it to new audiences again and again and my time and efforts would pay off. Next I spoke to the people in the continuing education department at the community college where I work and asked them to add my class to their course catalog. They quickly agreed. I also hit up the employee education department and they too added me to their schedule, although this class was a watered down one-hour version. Most of these classes were well attended and well received, but a few had to be cancelled due to low enrollment. 

I continued to refine and improve my presentation, and sought new venues to present my program. I reached out to a private college thirty minutes from home and proposed the course to their continuing education department. Based on my experiences at the community college they readily agreed. I am now teaching several classes at each college per semester.

The program evolved once more after many attendees  wrote on their evaluation forms that the program was too short; they wanted more. I expanded the class to two two-hour sessions called Write Release Retail: How to Become an Indie Author. The first session is on writing a book and preparing it for publication; the second focuses on marketing and promotion. 

One of the perks of these presentations is the opportunity to sell books, not by the truckload, but one at a time, hand to hand. It's a soft sell but invariably someone asks to buy a book and others follow. They are always front and center in my display and serve as the textbook for my program. 

And I get paid for talking to aspiring authors about publishing their work. The community college gives me an hourly rate and I split the fees with the private college 50/50. I'm not getting rich, but it's one more example of my credibility. 

I love teaching. It's one way I build my reputation as an author on a local level. It gives me confidence to continue with this endeavor, even on those days when I wonder "Why am I doing this? Should I be doing this?" Self-publishing is the most difficult thing I've ever done, but my students inspire me and renew my faith in my own abilities. 

To see my current class schedule please visit this page. 

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Alzheimer's, Literature, and Still Alice

There is no disease that strikes more fear into the hearts of most of us than Alzheimer’s disease, the thief of memory, the robber of human dignity. Over the last two years, I have had the privilege to speak to many people about this disease and the topic is usually met with a shudder, followed by the words “oh, God.”  Some people are unable to discuss the subject at all, tearing up, shaking their heads, and walking away. Alzheimer's is the disease of my generation, affecting our grandparents and parents at an alarming rate, with the number of cases expected to TRIPLE by 2050. Unfortunately, it does not get enough attention through the popular media to educate us about it, to start a public conversation, or to teach us how to prepare for the tsunami of cases coming our way. 

The recent release of the movie Still Alice, based on the bestselling novel by neuroscientist Lisa Genova, has put Alzheimer’s disease in the spotlight. It’s the first major motion picture to take on Alzheimer’s in many years. Although the disease affects an estimated 5.5 million Americans (and 44 million worldwide), it has not yet penetrated pop culture in a meaningful way, so  it’s encouraging to finally see it addressed in the popular media in a way we can easily relate to, in all its emotional and horrific truth.

I didn't read Still Alice when Genova self-published it in 2007 or when Pocket Books (now Gallery Books) republished it in 2009 because I was in the midst of rewriting then publishing my own Alzheimer’s novel, Blue Hydrangeas. But with the release of the film imminent, I finally sat down and read Genova’s book. It is a fine representation of this disease, and one of the few dealing specifically with early onset Alzheimer’s, which strikes before age 65 and affects five percent of those with the disease.

Genova's heroine Alice Howland has just turned 50. Her life is rich with accomplishment and joy. She is a wife, a mother, and a well-respected, internationally known professor of linguistics at Harvard University. She has no reason to suspect that something is wrong with her brain, but a series of incidents in which she gets lost, forgets oft-repeated words in a lecture, and fails to get on a plane to attend a conference she’s well-prepared for frightens her enough to seek medical attention. When the test results come in she’s told she has early-onset Alzheimer’s. Thus begins a harrowing descent into dementia that affects everyone close to Alice and turns all of their lives upside down.

Watching Alice’s decline is heartbreaking and seems too real, because we know the possibility of Alzheimer’s may exist in any one of us. Genova alternates her clinical knowledge with the human side of this illness, giving us sympathetic, believable characters and a number of credible scenes and scenarios.  Her book is both a manual on the how-to’s of the disease – how to get a diagnosis, how to get help, how to cope - as well as an expertly woven story of one woman’s experience of this disease. I recommend Still Alice for anyone interested in learning more about Alzheimer's, whether or not they or a loved one have the disease. 

As a nurse who writes short stories and novels about families struggling with medical issues, I value books like Still Alice and respect authors like Lisa Genova. There are many ways to educate people about a condition or disease. In regard to Alzheimer’s, there are hundreds of books available to explain the disease, advise what to do about it, how to handle it, and offer solutions and support for caregivers. These are all excellent resources. However, as a novelist, I feel stories that enlighten through the careful balance of useful facts and a cast of relatable and realistic characters may be a better way to shed light on this and many other medical issues. This type of presentation enables the reader to get inside the head of the Alzheimer’s patient, their caregivers, spouse, children, and other loved ones. It’s up close and personal, not clinical and removed. 

Throughout my research for Blue Hydrangeas and beyond I've read many novels about Alzheimer's and dementia which I’d also like to recommend. They include: Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook, (also in film), The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold, Untethered: A Caregiver's Tale by Phyllis Peters, Saving Grace by Barbara Delinsky, Still Time by Maria Hoagland, Eric Rill's An Absent Mind, and The Warrior With Alzheimer’s by Stephen Woodfin.

In addition to novels, memoir can also serve as an educational resource with personal insight, bringing the reader closer to the subject than a self-help or how-to book can.  Many such books were helpful to me in my research. I recommend: Elegy for Iris by John Bayley (also in film as Iris), The House on Beartown Road by Elizabeth Cohen, Thomas DeBaggio’s Losing My Mind, My Mom, My Hero by Lisa R. Hirsch, Released to the Angels: Discovering the Hidden Gifts of Alzheimer's by Marilynn Garzionne, Inside the Dementia Epidemic: A Daughter's Memoir by Martha Stettinius, and Nell Lake’s The Caregivers. The recently released Alzheimer's Daughter, Jean L. Lee's account of caring for two parents with Alzheimer's at the same time, brings knowledge and solace to those grappling with this illness (read my review.)

Two new titles on my to-be-read list gaining much acclaim lately are On Pluto by Greg O'Brien and Matthew Thomas' We Are Not Ourselves.

Alzheimer’s is a frightening possibility, but to meet it without knowledge or an understanding of its implications increases despair and hopelessness and strips one of the power to make competent decisions and access necessary supports and resources. Knowledge gained through literature and film can be as practical and useful as any self-help or how-to manual.

Still Alice, the film, has not yet been released in my area. I look forward to seeing it.

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Don't miss a word. Follow my Adventures in Publishing. 
Subscribe here and receive a free PDF of my Kindle short story "Ino's Love."