Busy (Best-Selling!) Beaver, Part 5: Luck of the Sun Gods

Hello World,

This is Part 5 in my ongoing series explaining my experiences going from a relatively unknown writing schmuck to an Amazon best-selling author. Today's post is about the little bit of luck that comes after I worked my ass off networking with other authors. To find out what that's all about, scroll back to my Jan. 3rd post and work your way forward.

I don't know where I heard/ read the phrase "Diligence is the mother of good luck," but I've come to respect it greatly. This past December, I came to believe in it.

After reaching out to some 500+ authors to make connections on Facebook, several dozen did more than just like my page in return... they started chatting with me as well. Those conversations were much like you might expect: Thanks were abundant, Questions were common, and the FeelGoods were constant.

It was at this point my proverbial snowball was officially rolling downhill. 

But it was slow. Just a few feet from the top.

It had yet to gain size or speed.

This went on for several weeks and, to be honest, continues now, more than a month later. As much as people are idiots (see previous post), people are also pretty cool, and I was digging the world of new writers I had immersed myself into.

Then one day I saw a book description on one of those pages and made a comment of appreciation to the author. Said author (I'll call him/her "Chris" to protect his/her identity), commented back in kind, and perhaps because we were kindred spirits in genres, we began to chat. I don't know what sun gods led me in Chris's direction, but I suspect it may have been the god of working one's ass off. ;)

Look. 

Do you see the snowball? 

It's really rolling now, and it's picking up speed.

Somewhere in that conversation we got to talking about sales of our book and it was abundantly clear Chris was out of my league. He/she was making hundreds of sales every day and had profited roughly $15,000 in the past 12 months. Not exactly quitting one's day job, but it was light years beyond the 3 grand I'd made over the past 4 years. I asked if there was some kind of secret, and to my surprise Chris more or less hinted that there was. He/She invited me to join a relatively small but closed (secret) writing group on Facebook and also shared a couple of good places to do some advertising.

Did you see the snowball gain in size just then? 

I certainly did. 

:)

There's much more to say about both, but in a nutshell, what Chris did was open the door to possibilities for me. I'd always known that to make money you need to spend money, but I'd always assumed it was more money than I would reasonably have.

I
was
wrong.

Tune in next time to find out where I advertised & how much I paid. In the meantime, why not strike up a conversation with a fellow like-minded human? There's a better-than-average chance they know something you don't, and vice versa.

Gratifying yours,
-K

ps: Writing Accomplished Since Last Post: No new words, but I did revise a particularly tough set of pages on my current book. I spent about 3 hours on the first five paragraphs alone. Yes, I really do work that slowly sometimes. But, yes, I really feel proud (NOT guilty!) of what I produce when I get the chance to do it.