Questions, Insights, & Thoughts on Week 1

[StaceyKeymaster]

This week we started discussing the story of your books. We’ll go into specific examples next week, but this is a good time to start thinking about how to group your books to build an overall narrative in your onboarding sequence.

[loisbreedloveParticipant]

I found the worksheets useful. I think and talk about my books by what the books are about: Talkeetna is a mystery series set in Alaska, featuring a Native Alaskan police lieutenant….

I don’t talk about them in terms of why did I write them: I wrote the opening scene to Everybody Lies while I was sitting in a bar in Seward, Alaska, thinking about how easy it would be to commit suicide there — pick a trail, start walking and eventually something would get you: the terrain, the wildlife, or the weather. And then I thought about why a woman might choose to do that. That led to Candace Marshall walking along the Parks Highway….
I don’t even talk about my years in Sitka, Alaska. I mention I lived in Alaska, yes, but I don’t tell stories about it.

And my subscribers — the loyal ones we’re wanting to create — probably would like that.  To create those subscribers, I need to sell myself, not my books. Sigh. I have the hardest time with that concept. It crops up again and again as I learn marketing.

(Or that when I workshopped that scene decades ago now, one of the women was a mental health counselor. And she goes, I have to ask this, are you OK? Do you need to talk to someone about suicidal thoughts? Because that was almost too real…. Hehehe.)

[katywatsonParticipant]

I’m exactly the same! Plenty of talk about the plot and characters, but not much about the story BEHIND the story, as it were.

Definitely something to work on…

[gillian.stkevernParticipant]

I’ve just finished writing out my responses to the worksheet questions. Looking forward to seeing the next lesson–I’m struggling to see how I will turn these answers into a cohesive and interesting story!

[IshaaniParticipant]

I think this was a really interesting week, even for a newbie who has not published any books.

At first, I was worried that 1) It would be HARD, and 2) I wouldn’t have anything to say.

I was glad to find that I actually enjoyed doing the worksheets, they made me think, but it was fun, not HARD (I’m always afraid of having to think HARD 😉 ) Also, I did have plenty to say, and had to stop myself from going on and on! So that was a relief, because one of the things I’ve been worried about is that I won’t have anything to say in my newsletters!

[Author]

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