1/14 Blog: Buy some books :)

Hi everyone. Have a break at work before a meeting so thought I would blog quick. We finally met with my publisher before the holiday to get an update. Before than everyone would always ask...how many have you sold, and I really had NO idea. Well now I know, but am not happy. Through stores I sold 550 books, and about another 550 on my own. So over a thousand. Should I be happy or sad? I am not sure

I really wanted to sell more, and still hope I can, but I realized in all of this a few important things:
1) I am really spoiled at P&G and the millions of dollars I have to market the brands I work on. When it is your own money it is so tough. To keep myself "clean" at P&G I hired a marketing firm to deal with the publisher, handle press releases, do events and so forth. They are local in Cincy, so couldn't get strong national reach, but at least we would try. It was $4K per month for this, so no small change. I only did it for 9 months because I just couldn't afford it. This got me some awareness locally which led to sales, and my deal with Fox 19 but certainly didn't drive broad awareness of the book...without this I rely on word of mouth from friends and family and my ability to sell, which leads me to #2
2) I am NOT a salesperson. I hate selling myself, and now I know why I really don't like true salesmen...I find them pushy and fake, but it is because they are good at their jobs and will sell whatever they are trying to sell in their sleep if they had to. I just can't do this, I feel like I am taking people's precious time. I would sit at book signings and daydream. Finally I started taking the kids so I had someone to talk to. I just can't throw out a comment to try to stop someone...but you need to to sell books, I just found that I am a marketer, not a salesman and that didn't help;
3) I need to ask more of friends and so forth. I NEVER talk about my book. I sent t-shirts to friends asking them to where it, but when someone is expecting I never say "hey you should buy my book" or when someones daughter is pregnant "hey my book would make a great gift." My new admin didn't even know I wrote a book...because I don't talk about it. That is a problem to. I need to be more proud of it as I do think it helps women like me as they try to manage it all.

So, looking back on the past year I have learned a lot. I am not sure if I can change really as it is who I am, but given that I have almost 4,000 of these in my house I will leave you all with "buy a book"...it makes a really good baby shower gift :)