Newsletter Ninja Home Page The Ninja Forums Advanced Automations Week 1 Insights Questions, Insights, & Thoughts on Week 1

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    • #15815
      Stacey
      Keymaster

        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.

      • #15826
        loisbreedlove
        Participant

          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.)

          • #15827
            katywatson
            Participant

              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…

          • #15837
            gillian.stkevern
            Participant

              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!

            • #16019
              Ishaani
              Participant

                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!

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