My Date with a Bad Redhead

While the year is still young--the year I'd called My Year--it was time for a date with a redhead.

I'd accomplished a lot in 2018
--I'd moved, finally, to a very good address.
--I'd published the lead title in my new mystery series and started work on the sequel.
--I'd succeeded with my plan to garner more revies.
--I'd just won a much better job.
--I'd added the star of my little home: an Iron Gym pull-up bar with arm straps for vertical leg lifts. And in only a couple of weeks I've seen remarkable progress in both my core and abs.

BUT...

I still hadn't achieved visibility on Amazon and my sales reflected that. Luckily, a Facebook post by Claude Bouchard alerted me to a hot little book written by a bad redhead.





I felt skeptical...until I clicked the Look Inside button. This slender book gets right down to business, beginning in week one with Twitter. Day One alone taught me:
--To stop thinking of Twitter as a primarily a sales tool but more as a channel for networking and visibility, for connecting with readers.
--How to best use new option of a lengthened display name (up to 50 characters), including a hashtag.
--How to jazz up and verb my bio in  150 characters, including a link to my new book, The Big Bopper.
--How to use the Location section as space to add more copy.

                                           


My main takeaways from this first chapter: the absolute imperative of a You, not Me, approach, plus simplicity and speed from the heart of the center of Now.  Example: instead of a bio beginning with my start as Kelley Wilde in horror, the names of my trad publishers, my change of direction from horror to noir, my location, this:

Display name: Reb MacRath, #Award-winning Author
In lieu of a bio: I write short thrillers committed to the art of thinking small. At 5'4", my new hero does just that in his own unforgettable way. https://tinyurl.com/y8hf94om
In lieu of location: Of note: My first book, The Suiting, won a Stoker Award and has been called one of the world's 100 most influential horror novels.

I plan to tackle this 30-day challenge one trick, not one chapter, a day.

Here's a link to the Kindle edition, which you'll want to buy instead of the print.
https://tinyurl.com/ycocm4z7

The hard copy comes with a problem, I learned: the scores of useful hyperlinks embedded in the ebook are 'dead' in the printed text. You may not mind retyping, but often instead of a link that's spelled out you'll see Click here, nothing else.

Other than that, it's a terrific little book. And I can hardly wait till I graduate to week 2, in which we get to Facebook.

On Bettering a Good Address

Well, it took me a long enough to reach this destination, the place I now call my GA.

But last night I removed the last small box from my old studio in Pioneer Square, dropping off my keys. And that was when I could honestly say I'd stopped moving and had moved. From Pioneer Square to First Hill...from the Tooney to the toney part of old Rain City.

Soon I'll post some photos of the hardwood floors, my first writer's desk and the wide open spaces. 

Today I want to toy with thoughts of the shifting that I feel within me.

On all fronts I want my life in harmony with my GA: a fusion of confidence, brio and boldness. I want these three things in my writing, my work, my promotional tacks, my relationships.

Speaking of work, for example...Why am I working for less than I'm worth? And where can I find a position that gives me more funding for ads? Quality of life: how can I get weekends off and holidays with pay?

From the GA an endless chain of linked thoughts commences. And here's the tune I have in mind: