I was speaking with a marketing person this morning and after telling him the title of my book, explaining the subject matter and some of my thoughts on how to move forward he replied, “Well, it’s too bad you didn’t think of this before you wrote your book. You could have branded it this way (he gave me a totally different title for the book) and appealed to a much greater audience.”He’s right. I could have. I could have started blogging six weeks or six months earlier to build up a following. I could have a greater presence on social networking sites. My website could have been ready earlier. I could have followed all of the advice I give to all of my writers.
I didn’t.
The sad truth is, that like many of you, when Lorette and I came up with the idea for our book a few months ago we were so enthusiastic about the idea that we plunged right into writing it. The creative act of actually writing the book came first. For me, because it is the most fun. For Lorette, because she saw it as a good way to experience the book-writing process.
While we did begin planning our marketing strategy before our book was finished, and even purchased the URL for its website, somehow time got away from us and almost none of the marketing for Finish you book! was in place as early as we wanted it to be.
But guess what? We are still selling books. We are still marketing. We are planning a book launch party and developing a seminar. We are getting it done. In a perfect world everything would go smoothly. In a perfect world you wouldn’t need a blog to tell you how to finish your book.
Whether you are writing a book, marketing a book, or undertaking any other project, it doesn’t matter that you haven’t done everything in the perfect order. It doesn’t that you started some things late or didn’t do it in the order suggested by the experts. What matters is that you start your project, because without starting, you’ll never finish.