Book Marketing For Authors Blog 16- Making New Friends

Are You Making New Friends?

 

Believe it or not, the people who surround you daily might not fully understand your dreams and ambitions. They may not fully get how you’re trying to make this world a better place through your self-publishing life-style. Most people out there have a 9-5 mindset. And that’s fine for most people. There is nothing wrong with the 9-5 mentality. However, at times when you’re looking for help, when you’re feeling down, even when you’re feeling a bit lonely, most of the people who surround you are not going to be able to help. Most won’t fully understand what you’re going through or be able to offer any real assistance. Thus, as I mentioned previously, you have to make at least one new friend who is doing what you’re trying to do. This new friend will understand what you’re going through.

In addition, once you get going and building some momentum, friends and family may come to you for a job. I say, “Be very careful.” Things don’t always work out. As a matter of fact, often things don’t work out. And if you don’t have a very understanding friend or family member working for you, you could damage that relationship. And the last thing we want to do is damage friendships with people who we see every day and like or maybe even love.

Hey, I’ve been on both ends of this equation. It hurts. Since then, I’ve been able to repair these life-long friendships, but it’s still a terrible thing to go thru. If you need help, you might be better off hiring a virtual assistant that you’re not too emotionally close to.

Now to make some friends! We can find people to form new friendships within groups. There are endless groups on the different social media channels in which you can find new friends who are already of your mindset. These new friends will offer you some camaraderie and help with your authorpreneurship. And we don’t have to stop just in the virtual world to make new friends.

There are tons of Meetup Groups going on every day around this country. Hop into a few of those with like-minded people and create some new friendships there too. Listen, I am crazy busy, so I don’t have the time to get to many of these Meetup Groups. But I do get to a few here and there. And guess what? There are people who I met years ago at Meetups who stay in touch with me and still introduce me to other people who they think I should know. Now that’s pretty helpful, wouldn’t you agree?

Another way to make some new like-minded friends who are probably a little higher up the mountain than us is to join an association in our field. There are associations in everything we can imagine. We all should join the association for whatever subject our book is based on. There, we’ll meet people who have been at it longer than us who can show us the ropes in that field.

And since we’re indie authors who are also authorpreneurs trying to build a business around our books, we can also join a business association. There we can meet people who can show us better ways of forming and running our author businesses. We can also join a marketing or bookselling association, and we’ll find all sorts of people there who we should be friends with.

I have been a member of the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (CAPA) in Avon, CT. After meeting some great people there and learning a lot about how to write, publish, and sell books, I became a Board Member. And guess what? I met the movers and shakers of the association, and learned even more about writing, publishing and selling books.

After a while, I branched off and started my own chapter of CAPA in the area of Connecticut, where I live, and I met even more great people. As the founder and President of the Northeast Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (NECAPA) I learned even more about the ins and outs of what we are all trying to do as authorpreneurs. And I built friendships that I still have to this day.

Eventually, I got recruited to become the Connecticut President of the Association of Publishers for Special Sales (APSS). Keeping it simple, this is a worldwide association that helps one sell books as CAPA does. But APSS focuses a little less on the writing and publishing, and a little more on the marketing and sales side, especially nontraditional sales. I have made so many friends here as the President that I can’t even count them all. I have also learned tons of stuff that has helped me be a better authorpreneur. In addition, I now have an even bigger voice and a bunch of teammates/friends who are willing to jump in on whatever projects I put together. We use the power of synergy to benefit all of us.

I still have all my old friends. I haven’t pushed any of them aside. But at the same time, I have also made room in my life for a lot of new friends who are like-minded and better able to support my dreams and ambitions. You should be doing the same thing. The bottom line is that we have to do something in order to become something. So, why not do something like what has already been mentioned above? These kind of things will help all of us make new friends, sell more books, and make more money. And that’s definitely something we want to do, right?

*Watch this FREE video lesson on this chapter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlJDITKLlEQ&list=PL_-39bUXJitwL8cHUpiZ5mO0-JJuaPOVl&index=17

 

              

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