Support

   When I first started writing, there was one thing that was missing. I didn’t feel like I could market my books well enough for them to be a success. The truth is that I still don’t. I’ve never kept up with trends, and I’ve never concerned myself with what others thought of me or the things I wrote until here lately. I learned slowly but surely how to get the word out, but it still wasn’t enough to get me to where I wanted to be. Fortunately, I discovered the most important thing about marketing recently.

   The best way to sell any product is to sell yourself. Now, I know that may sound weird, but as I have made new friends, they have supported me. I have had friends, family members, and people that I previously didn’t even know give me their support over the last few weeks. Recently, my likes on my Facebook page have gone up, and I’ve found a brand new way to promote through my Street Team. I’m going to be honest. I never knew what a Street Team was before a friend told me I should have one. Now I have so many friends blasting my books.

   I guess that I’ve learned two valuable things from this experience. One is that you can’t make someone support you. Many of the people you thought you were closest to will ignore everything about what you do. That’s okay. You have to move past that lack of support and believe in what you do. If they won’t even give something that means everything to you a chance, then you’ve just found out exactly who they are to you. Here’s the other thing you’ll learn. When you find people who are truly passionate about your work and who value you as a friend, hang on to them. Don’t do it because they help sell your books or because they add to your number of likes on Facebook. Do it because every relationship you form pushes you closer to where you want to be as a person. Do it because their support is what keeps you going when you don’t feel like you should even try anymore. You see, we often seek out the support of those closest to us, and unfortunately, some of them disappoint us. That’s all right, though. In my experience, there will always be a group of people who care for you and what you do more than anyone could ever ignore you or your books.

   If I could go back a year ago and tell myself one thing, it would be this. Everything to do with people matters: every Facebook message, every giveaway, and every person who says they want to meet you. When you treat the people around you like you want to be treated, something amazing starts to happen. You find that people who used to be nothing more than strangers are your biggest supporters and more importantly, they’re the friends you always needed.

   The point of this blog today was simple. I just wanted to thank all of my newly found friends. You guys have supported me in ways that I didn’t even know existed. I hope to do this for a long time, but no matter what happens in the future, it has been nice to see how people can be passionate, giving, and over all good. It’s not often that people will do anything for free or even be a friend unless something is in it for them. I don’t have as many supporters as a lot of famous authors do, but I do have one thing that they don’t. I have people who aren’t a number on a sales list and people I don’t think of as supporters or fans. I think of them as the rarest of friends. Thanks for everything, guys. I never imagined that I would find such great people around the world.