Category Archives: Books

Books do so much. They teach, inspire, motivate, educate and entertain. You can travel to other parts of the world, simply using your imagination, as you read travel books. This blog that is written largely by author Denise Turney has a wealth of material on the book industry. Whether you are an author yourself, an editor, publisher, freelance writer, content marketer or literary agent, there is something for you at this blog. Enjoy exploring the articles and learning from what is shared in the articles here.

Book Marketing Platforms that Work

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book marketing books on shelf

By Books Author Denise Turney

Book marketing is a long, ongoing process. If you want a sustainable career as a writer, you need to learn and start practicing smart marketing techniques. Fortunately, there are technology tools to help.

For starters, you can get real traction at the right book marketing platforms using two strategies. One approach requires more of your time. The other approach requires more money.

Types of Book Marketing Platforms

AALBC.com, Book Daily, Artist First and Good Reads are types of marketing platforms. So too are TED Talk, Mosaic, podcasts and social media.

Book clubs, television programs that focus on books, press release distribution services and bookstores are also types of marketing platforms. But it’s your book blog and author website that are your primary platforms.

Each platform that you work should point back to either your author website or your book order page. If your only book order page is at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com, point platforms to your custom sales pages at those bookseller websites.

Getting Platform Results Is Not Free

That means that your social media profiles should include the link to either your author website or book order page. When you run ads through marketing agencies like Book Daily, add a link to your book order page in your profile.

If you have the time, schedule at least an hour a day to work book marketing platforms. The more time you invest at the platforms, the better. But don’t just posts. Find out who platform influencers are. Ask influencers questions, “like” what they share and follow them.

I’m a fan of social media posts schedulers like Buffer and Hootsuite. Just log into social media accounts and posts live once a day. You can get results with 5 to 10 minutes of work per social media platform.

Social Media and More Marketing Platforms

Pick two to three social media platforms to actively posts comments, ask questions and share motivational quotes on. See if your followers, shares, likes and overall engagement don’t go up.

Build your marketing platforms by:

  • Blogging once a week or more (add keywords into your blog posts)
  • Sending direct mail to book lovers
  • Creating and distributing a weekly or a monthly book newsletter
  • Scheduling at least one YouTube or Vimeo video posts a week
  • Guest posting on high traffic websites like Huffington Post, Forbes and Entrepreneur. Include a link to your author website in your bio.
  • Attending large book club events and cultural festivals. Pass out free bookmarks or book excerpts. Stamp your author website URL on all handouts.

Take two to three of the above steps at least once a week. If you’re short on time, pay marketing agencies to do your heavy lifting. Start small with spending. Avoid giving into smooth sales pitches and getting pulled into expensive marketing deals.

Measure Book Marketing Results

Make sure that you see measurable results, and not just an increase in traffic. Why is this important? Computer bots can send loads of traffic your way, lending the appearance that tons of people are truly interested in your book, when that’s not the case.

Don’t assume that just because your profile, website URL or book cover is at book marketing platforms that you’re pulling in the right traffic. An increase in book sales is a sure sign that book marketing platforms are working.

Requests for book excerpts, author interviews, more social media followers and increased reader engagement are other signs that book marketing platforms are yielding good results. If you receive more comments that focus on your book or its topics at your book blog after launching a book marketing campaign, it could be an additional indicator that platforms you’re on are pulling in your target audience.

11 Book Reading Benefits

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By Book Author Denise Turney

book reading choices

Book reading benefits are hidden beneath so much great entertainment. You sink into these benefits at certain times. For instance, snowstorms, long vacations and relaxing weekends are times when it’s easy to tuck yourself inside the pages of a deeply moving book. It’s as if you don’t have good enough reason to talk yourself out of reading a book, especially a mind-blowing novel, while weather has you indoors or time itself, plays the role of a good friend.

Lasting Book Reading Benefits

But here’s the thing. Whether you read purely for entertainment or not, there are so many advantages to reading books. If you’re an avid book reader, you already know how much you gain. On the other hand, if you’re on the fence about buying and reading a new, entertaining or educational (e.g., history books, technical books) title, check out these 11 benefits associated with book reading. Some of these benefits might surprise you:

  1. Less Stress – Reading good books takes your mind off of challenges you’re facing in your life, experiences you want a break from. That’s why reading books is a great way to relax.
  2. Imagination – For sure, reading great novels is an effective way to stimulate your imagination. Who knows? Something might pop up in a book you’re reading that helps you find an answer to a question you’re seeking.
  3. Meet Awesome Characters – What’s better than meeting and exploring awesome fictional characters?
  4. Quicker Pick-Up – Reading a lot of books can definitely help you to grasp important facts.
  5. Encourages Young Readers – When your children, nieces and nephews see you reading books, it encourages them to read. Better yet, if you read to your kids, grandkids and nieces and nephews, you can help them build a love for reading.

Book Reading Keeps on Giving

  1. Learning – Also, you don’t have to read nonfiction to learn while you read. In fact, novels, especially historical novels, are rich with educational facts and information.
  2. Motivation – Sure, self-help books are packed with motivation. But there are biographies, autobiographies and novels that leave you feeling truly motivated.
  3. Sharper Concentration – Because you focus while reading a book, your ability to concentrate may improve.
  4. Brain Stimulation – Depending on the book type, you might stimulate both your right and left brain while reading, especially if you complete workbook exercises.
  5. Entertainment – Yes! This is it! Great entertainment, right at home is a top advantage of reading great books.
  6. Friends – Join a book club and you can make good friends. Also, a talented author creates characters that you root for, characters you love – characters who feel like good friends.

Go Deeper with Great Books

Who knows? Read three great books in a row and you might not go a month without reading at least one book. Give it a minute, and you might even become one of those cool train, bus or airplane passengers who’s reading an awesome novel on the way to and from work or during your commute to and from school.

Even more, should you be able to set clear reading boundaries (lucky you!), you might sleep better after you read a good book. But be warned. Putting a good book down is not easy.

Depending on the depth of the characters and the jams they find themselves in, you might keep telling yourself “just one more page”. Yep, that’s another thing about reading good books. You keep wanting to know what’s going to happen to your favorite characters. After all, these characters are about to change you.

Happy book reading!

How to Practice Self-Love in Less than 5 Minutes

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Flower Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Christian Ferrer

By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

Self-love offers the assurance that you are always loved and are always lovable. When it comes to loving yourself, there are options, choices that cause you to receive and experience peace, joy and dare say — love. To get the most out of these options, start appreciating yourself. For example, the more patient you are with yourself, the more eager you become to exit abusive relationships – be they abusive romantic, social, religious or career relationships.

Loving You Offers Enormous Rewards

In fact, it’s hard to stay in unloving relationships when you know that you deserve love and you know that you are lovable. Beliefs about your value will shift, and like the Red Sea, you will part from what no longer aligns with how you perceive yourself. Additionally, self-love gifts you with the confidence to connect with people whose presence centers you in joy and peace.

Also, self-love builds inner trust. Once you start trusting yourself, that still small voice seems to get louder, clearer. That’s when you become aware of guidance directing you through challenges. If you’re looking to learn to love yourself, here are 11 simple steps.

Self-Love Practices

On the other hand, if you’ve made self-love part of your life and are committed to the practice, the idea that loving yourself can help you design amazing experiences isn’t farfetched. Following are ways to practice self-love in less than 5 minutes:

  • Start the day with a thought, a word and an emotion of appreciation. For example, you could wake with a “Thank You” followed by 10 seconds of silence.
  • Pray for what you want (also take smart actions). Prayer may well be a sign that you believe you are cared for enough to have your request be heard and answered.
  • Meditate for 2 to 14 minutes a day. As an example, you could sit still for 3 minutes at night before you retire to bed.
  • Eat and drink a healthy diet of fresh water, non-GMO fruit and vegetables, etc.

More Quick Self-Love Practices

  • Get outside and enjoy a walk, bike ride, jog or swim. Simply get outdoors and enjoy nature as you move your body.
  • Speak kindly to yourself throughout the day. For instance, you could stand naked in front of a long mirror and say, “I love you” to yourself before you dress in the morning. And you could do the same at night.
  • Connect with people you trust, people who are kind, caring and loving to not only you but others as well.
  • Engage in three or more activities that cause you to feel peace and joy.

Love Pour Over Me Support

You can never start self-love practices too soon. Patience is one of the greatest of the self-love practices. Yes. Despite your best intentions, you’re going to make mistakes. But you cannot make a mistake that cannot be corrected. So, keep advancing on your amazing journey. Practice self-love as Raymond Clarke, the major character in the book Love Pour Over Me, learns that he too must.

I encourage you to get a copy of the fictional story, Love Pour Over Me to witness the twists and turns, the highs and lows and the challenges and victories that Raymond experiences. Perhaps you will find encouragement, inspiration, motivation and support through reading Raymond’s story — support to continue (or start) loving yourself each and every day — at all times.

10 Virtual Book Marketing Tips

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Gone are the days when writer’s conferences, book festivals and live author book signings were held solely in-person. COVID-19 shifted those trends. To succeed in today’s literary world as an author, you need to implement the right virtual book marketing techniques.

Additionally, and as solitary as the book industry may seem to be, in order to thrive, bookstore owners, book publishers, literary agents, publicists and authors need to connect with each other as well as with readers. Keep reading to discover how to make these connections online.

books on laptop screen and book marketing ipad
Book marketing website

Book Marketing from Remote Locations

Traditional book marketing options have definitely changed, thanks to COVID-19. But there are still ways to develop and maintain rewarding connections with book buyers and industry leaders. This article focuses on keyways that authors and readers can connect online.

It’s important to remember that book marketing is about more than selling books. In fact, it’s while marketing books that authors get the chance to build rewarding face-to-face relationships with book buyers. Especially during book signings, writers can ask readers what appealed to them about their novel, who their favorite characters are and what they’d like to see in upcoming books.

The below tips have been proven to work in the virtual world. There’s only one tip that you might have to leave your home to complete.

These 5 Tips Support Social Distancing

The first tip is important for nearly any book marketing environment. In fact, you may want to keep using that tip and the other tips after in-person book events increase:

  1. Create a book mailing list. Looking for ways to do this? Add a “Subscribe Here” button to your website. Offer website visitors the chance to win free copies of your books as giveaways. To participate in giveaways, ask website visitors to fill out a form that requires them to provide their email address. Include a box for visitors to check, confirming that they agree to receive discount, free and informational content from you.
  2. Host a Facebook Live book reading. In fact, this is great way to stir up interest in older titles. And it’s a great way to generate interest in your soon-to-be-released novel.
  3. Build a newsletter. If you’re looking to save time, try an automated mail system like Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, Mail Monkey, etc.
  4. Schedule online radio interviews. Podcasts like Off The Shelf Books Talk Radio conduct one-hour author feature interviews.
  5. Send electronic holiday greetings. Send electronic holiday greetings to targeted recipients (e.g., readers who’ve purchased one or more books from you, book club presidents, leaders of organizations that work in the field your book is focused in).

More Book Marketing Tips in a Virtual World

  1. Design social media headers. These are professional headers that attract immediate attention. However, if you don’t have solid design skills, consider working with a talented graphics artist or website designer.
  2. Order a book marketing magnet for your car. Place the magnet on your car’s bumper or the front or back doors.
  3. Join a cross-author book promotion group. And be prepared to share other writers’ books with your contacts. Writers in the group will do the same for your titles.
  4. Introduce your books to private social media groups. But don’t just market your books. Post questions, answer questions and offer tips.
  5. Develop cool book marketing postcards to mail to your contacts. This is where you may have to leave home and go to the post office. Why? These are hard (hold-in-your-hand) postcards.

Growing Book Marketing Strategies

Social distancing or not, marketing books is not easy. To be successful, as an author, you have to be committed. This means, that you market your books even if you go days without a book sale. You market books when it’s storming outside, you feel like you’re wasting time and your outreach yields numerous “no’s”.

Also, to know which book marketing actions best fit your book, your schedule, travel and financial situation, track your efforts. You’ll love that this is as simple as tracking contacts like book clubs, radio stations, newspaper editors, librarians and social media groups on a spreadsheet. Update the spreadsheet with outreach results. For example, did your email to a local radio DJ yield you an interview? If so, log that on the spreadsheet with the date of the interview.

It can be so beneficial. In fact, when more in-person events are held, consider incorporating the above tips into your standard book marketing efforts. Also, stay creative. In other words, keep looking for and developing new, effective ways to find and connect with readers.

Quiet Time at Home Calls for Good Books

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By African American Books Author Denise Turney

Love Pour Over Me good books cover
Love Pour Over Me Book Cover

Good books make home the sweetest place. Let’s paint the scene. You’ve just knocked out a 10-hour workday, talk about feeling happy to be home. The first thing you do is kick your shoes off and head for the refrigerator, where you pour yourself a cold, inviting glass of apple juice.

When the Mood Shifts

But that’s not enough. Ten minutes don’t pass before you pull a new mystery thriller out of your den’s bookcase, and sit down with that delicious apple juice, cross your legs and start to read. Oh, the joys of a peaceful home.

Home really is where the heart is. It’s comforting, the spot where you lay your burdens down.

Convincing?

Here’s another way to look at it. Even considering how good it feels to be home after a trying day, let a rush freelance project, unexpected school exam, illness or home repair require you to stay home for two weeks, and the feel of home could change.

Likeable-Loveable Book Characters

Your once peaceful abode can suddenly feel like an island you can’t get off of. Know what time it is? It’s time for a good book.

Yes. To get a welcoming fresh start, explore the inner workings of good books. A taut, suspense novel like Spiral, The Firm, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo or Devil In A Blue Dress, can keep you so caught up wondering what’s coming next that hours may pass before you realize that you’re still sitting on the living room sofa. This is just one reason why books make the best gifts.

If yours is a particularly warm, passionate heart, try curling up in your cozy bed, soft pastel pillows pushed gently against your elbows and ribs. Let the hours pass gently as you get so acquainted with two main characters in a moving romance novel like The Wedding Date, Forget Me Not, The Notebook or Love Pour Over Me, that the characters feel like friends you never want to part with.

Good Books That Entertain – Change Your Life

Options are open. When it comes to good books, there’s a story in every genre, from the classics to new releases, some set in the yet-to-be-discovered future, to noble traditional fiction books. With good fiction, it’s easy to let the author steer you along a pathway that you’d never expected to be on. Read books written by a rare talent, and you might feel like your life has been changed for the better even before you turn the last page.

Thing is, it was a poetry book written by Chicago’s great Gwendolyn Brooks, that changed my life. I am fortunate to have been introduced to this thin book of poetry when I was 10 years old. It was a time of great change in my life. My sister found the book in our elementary school library. It’s still odd to me how my sister dropped the book on the bed that we shared then turned, raced back down the stairs and headed outside to play. She never read the book. Me. The book changed my life.

Time to Read a Good Book

It was the end of a routine, uneventful school day. At first, I didn’t want to read the book. Being in a funk, it took me a few minutes to give into my love of reading, a habit that brings endless reward. You got it. Soon, I had the book in my hands. It was then that I was pulled under Gwendolyn Brooks’ spell.

That book of poems changed my life. It really did. For the first time, book characters seemed alive. And the scenes that the characters were placed in felt real, reminding me of real-life settings my family, friends and I had found ourselves in.

While I read the book, everything seemed to have shifted. Really. If you’ve read a good book, you know the effect that a great story has on you. Admittedly, it’s hard to trade something else in for this rare experience.

Read good books and you could tap into inspiration to live your best life. Your confidence could lift, vision to solve a problem might surface and the gift of connecting with amazing, complicated characters could be yours.

So, if you’re stuck in the house, mentally nibbling on the edges of cabin fever, consider reaching for a good book. All you’ll have to do is turn the pages. A talented writer makes everything else so easy. At the end of the journey, you may be more than entertained. You may tap into courage, motivation, creativity and pleasure. In the most amazing, unexpected ways, you might be changed.

Life Changing Stories that Matter

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By Books Writer Denise Turney

life changing stories in books website picture
Life changing stories

Life changing stories are part of the human experience. Sharpen your radar, and you might notice that people tell stories before they ask for money, for a time investment, or for a favor like helping them to pack and move. For example, just before she asks you to help her pay her rent, a friend might tell you a story about how she contracted a virus and incurred an unexpected medical bill.

Life Changing Stories – Lasting Impact

Certainly, some of us are better storytellers than others. And it doesn’t mean that someone is lying simply because he tells good stories. In fact, before humans were writing or reading, we were telling stories. Oral traditions date back centuries. In places like West Africa, oral storytelling was used to entertain, educate and maintain histories. As it did then, storytelling offers so much to appreciate, love and share.

In other parts of the world, chants were used as part of storytelling. So too were songs, poems and dance. Clearly, storytelling is a powerful communication tool. Marketers use it to develop emotional connections between consumers and their brands, products and/or services. Preachers use it to clarify scriptures and biblical teachings. Furthermore, romantic couples use storytelling to build a bridge of understanding.

Regardless of the reason, to be impactful, stories must resonate. And, it’s not the storyteller who gets to determine how deeply a story resonates. But, a skilled storyteller can be so finely tuned into her audience, that she easily picks up cues from her audience, alerting her when to shift the focus of a story, share new events and churn a story with questions and cliffhanging emotion.

What Great Storytelling Does

Even then, the goal of the story remains unchanged. Dare it be said that the goal of a good story is to connect two people (the storyteller and the listener)? And, if not to connect the person telling the story and the listener then the goal is to connect the characters in the story and the reader.

Think about it. If you love reading stories, you probably have a few favorite book characters. Maybe it’s the inquisitive girl who grew up to be the detective who solves a century old mystery that has been plaguing a culture.

Or maybe it’s the injured Olympian who attempts suicide only to stumble upon a beggar who changes his life, inspiring him to give his life one more chance, the very chance that finds the injured Olympian doing the work that helps orphans go from living desperate to triumphant lives.

Your Part in Great Life Changing Stories

Admittedly, you may not notice it. But, as it is with the friend who tells you a story before she asks you to help pay her rent, you’re a part of the story. You’re not just a listener or a reader. In fact, the story wouldn’t work without you. Every great storyteller knows this.

Can’t you see an audience sitting around an oral storyteller centuries ago, waiting to hear what happens next, waiting to hear what the storyteller will share next? Have you ever wondered if these eager listeners knew that the stories that they listened to would impact their lives? Yes, even made up or fictional stories.

Do you think that’s why you like to read so much? You want your life to change. Somehow, you do. And you love when you happen upon a skilled storyteller who can help you to realize just that change.

Shift Dream Vision – Brand New You Spring Motivation

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By Books Author Denise Turney

spring flowers motivational shifts
Spring Flowers Wikimedia Commons – Picture by AutoGyro

Spring approaches. And so, it’s time to shift forward and in ways that don’t involve Daylight Savings Time. It’s time to shift into a brand-new vision, gain liberating spring motivation. The shift might be just what you need to persevere until the roots to your dream start to push above the surface.

Don’t Quit Your Deep Dream

Here’s the thing. Belief that you can achieve your dream works like horsepower. It’s powerful, energizing. Yet, as powerful as the belief that you can achieve your dream is, it pales in comparison to the commanding influence the belief that you will achieve your dream possesses.

Not surprisingly, the start of a dream quest is an easy time to believe that you will accomplish a goal. In fact, it gets harder as you go, especially if you’ve been developing products, marketing your brand, hitting the road doing face-to-face interviews and knocking out copy writing projects Monday thru Saturday only to reap fatigue and little financial reward.

Let that continue for two years and you might toss in the towel. But what if you’re missing something? What if someone could help you see what you’re missing? This Spring, to shift from being a disillusioned dreamer to being a dream catcher, start building the right dream team. At the very least, don’t quit your deep dream.

Spring Motivation – Smart Dream Team Building

As a solo dreamer, despite your intentions, you will fatigue yourself at some point. Desire is not enough. You really can’t do it all yourself if you plan to scale big. Hence, you need a smart team.

Think about it, successful midsize and large companies have smart teams. The right board ensures that every action you take brings you closer to fulfilling your dream. A good board also keeps you from falling prey to tunnel vision. And the right board fuels you with motivation, a critical ingredient you need to persevere.

Also, the right board pushes back when you veer off course. Members of the board may help you to build your sales, marketing, accounting and communications teams. Because you’re in business (even if you’re an artist working to sale books), draft up and sign ironclad contracts. Partnering with freelancers is another option.

Persevere To Spring Away Pipe Dream

Above all, persevere if you want to fulfill your dream. After all, you may have to change board members and other members of your dream team along the way. That alone could shake you. So, commit that you’ll persevere through highs and lows, as you’ll certainly see your share of both.

This Spring, to shift and persevere, remember why you got started. For example, did you receive inner guidance to pursue a specific dream? Did you take hold of your dream and start taking smart actions to see it fulfilled because you wanted to help fill a perceived gap in healthcare, education, law, a community? If so, does the need persist?

Stay Open To Change And Persevere

Consider this. People may be waiting for to fulfill your dream. Once you reach the next step in your dream, you may be guided to level up from there. So, you have to persevere. Who knows how many lives the fulfillment of your dream will impact.

So, surround yourself with the right dream team, nurture your dream and keep going. Also, review your finances from top to bottom. Don’t talk yourself out of looking at financial records, including your personal finances. And don’t hand this responsibility off to anyone else. Make cuts, additions and shifts as needed. This will certainly not be a one and done activity.

Review marketing and advertising costs and return on investment. Keep learning to stay abreast of industry, product, service and marketing and advertising changes. As simple as it may sound, invest time in self-care. Simply put, get enough rest, exercise and treat yourself to a healthy diet. Be open to change. Yes, be open to change. You may soon spring forward. So, persevere.

How to Design Low-Cost Social Media Book Marketing Visuals

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Author Denise Turney Twitter social media book marketing profile
Twitter Social Media Book Marketing Page

Social media book marketing can do one of two things. Go down this marketing road and you could spend loads of time (I’m talking hours each week) only to yield small results. This is a path of frustration and disillusion. I know. I’ve been on this road before.

You could also find a way to tap into the right social media book audience, connect these book lovers to an effective message and watch your book sales increase. Visuals, especially when combined with clear audio, are great ways to marry the right message with the right audience.

Social Media Book Marketing Design Tools

Here are virtual marketing design platforms that save you time. These design tools are intuitive. You can figure out how to use them in as little as a few minutes. Even more, pricing on these design programs is inexpensive. I’ve used more than one of the below tools to design book marketing visuals in less than 10 minutes. Because I generally reuse designs, after I create the designs, I save them as a PDF or JPEG.

That way, I can publish the designs to several social media platforms. It’s a cool way to keep social media book marketing messaging fresh. As a tip, include your website URL (or the URL to the site that you want readers to click on) on the actual design). And now, to the low-cost book marketing design platforms:

  • Affinity – https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/: Affinity Publisher works with iPad, Mac and Windows. Book marketing visuals you can create with Affinity rival top professional marketing designs. The Windows version cost $49.99. Images are crisp, sharp, definitely attention grabbing.
  • Bootstrap – https://getbootstrap.com/:  Blog headers, one-page websites, book marketing visual carousels and analytics are a few design options at Bootstrap. Similar to Canva, Bootstrap offers themes you can use to kick off new book marketing designs. You have to install the program to use it.
  • Canva – https://www.canva.com/: I love Canva because of how easy it is to use. There’s the option to select book marketing designs like book covers, posters, postcards and social media posts. You can use existing designs, plop in your own images or edit Canva templates. There are free designs and low-cost designs. Another feature that I love about Canva is their print options. I use this to create postcards that I snail mail to media, book clubs, etc.

More Book Marketing Design Tools

  • Constant Contact – https://www.constantcontact.com: Although I don’t consider Constant Contact to be a true book marketing design platform, Constant Contact does have templates you can use to create newsletters and presentations that you can push out to target book buyers. Cost depends on the size of your mailing list; but can be as low as $39.99 a month. Recommend using Constant Contact, or a similar program, if you plan to use the program to automate and maintain your contact list.
  • Fixma – https://www.figma.com: Pricing for Fixma start at “Free” and works up to $45 a month. Pricing depends on the number of editors working on your designs.
  • Keynote – https://www.apple.com/keynote/: This application uses the Cloud to let you design and edit presentations.
  • Pixelmator – https://www.pixelmator.com: Great design tool to build out book marketing visuals, especially if you have design experience. You can buy a package for as little as $39.99. Pixelmator is built to edit existing designs.

Marketing books and selling books is ongoing, persistent work. It takes vision, passion, commitment and drive. You have to make the right choices often enough to scale. The above book marketing design tools could help you to deliver effective messaging about your books to the right book buyers.

Love Pours When You Receive Love as It Is

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By Books Author Denise Turney

Love pours and flows everywhere that you are. Yet, love seems evasive, hard to grasp and experience, let alone hold onto. Could part of the reason why you feel as if love is separate from you, a place where you aren’t, be due to how you define love?

Love Pour Over Me picture of woman smiling toward sky
Love Pours Over Me Book Picture

What Is Love?

For example, do you think of love as a warm inner feeling? Or maybe you associate love with intuition and a sense of inner knowing. Even more, love might feel like an adrenalin rush. Depending on your childhood, you might even think that love requires sacrifice.

Believe this and you might seek out a partner, colleagues, neighbors and friends who you deem worthy for you to sacrifice yourself for. When this occurs, you might give up your opinions, beliefs and passions so the other person can fulfill their beliefs and passions.

In extreme cases, you might become mute while around these people, judging these “special” people as more important than you are. But this route leads to frustration. Because no one is “special” or better or less than anyone else.

Love and Sacrifice

Years could pass before you realize this truth, especially if the dance of sacrifice is playing out in an intimate relationship. That’s when the relationship might be severely shaken. Why? You might feel as if you’ve given a lot more than you’ve received. Furthermore, you might feel like you’d given a lot more than the other person is worth.

And this is a major reason why love is not sacrifice. After all, what would love need? If love has and is everything that’s truth, why would love need sacrifice in any form?

Perceptions and beliefs about what love is, particularly as it regards sacrifice, can make love feel far away, like it’s only for the lucky few. Lack of forgiveness also makes love seem faraway, unreal.

Forgiveness Opens You So Love Pours

You may have heard the saying you get more of what you focus on. This alone, could be a key motivator to forgive. Focus on a wrong you perceive that someone has done to you, and you could get more chances to be wronged, definitely not the way to feel love’s presence.

I learned this lesson the hard way. When I perceived that someone had mistreated me, I told myself that I’d be dumb not to dislike her. The discomfort of carrying lack of forgiveness became a burden.

So, I decided to forgive.

But forgiving felt hard. It felt like I was pushing a mountain up a mountain.

Fortunately, I read an article filled with tips on how to open up to miracles. The writer of the article shared, to open up to miracles, spend at least an hour, no more than two hours, at one time saying, “I love you,” followed by the name of the person who I was struggling to forgive.

I tried it. And to my surprise it worked! A woman who’d mistreated me for more than a year, suddenly came up to me and gave me a hug. I was floored! She did it totally out of the blue! After that, our relationship was much better, and I actually felt love when I was in the woman’s presence. Before, I’d felt fear, anger, frustration and disappointment. Better yet, our relationship never went back to the strained way that it had been before.

When It Doesn’t Feel That Love Pours and Flows

Consider your relationships. Honestly, are there relationships with colleagues, partners, adult children, relatives or friends that find you feeling angry, defensive, afraid, depressed or small? Do you feel anything except love when you’re with these people?

What do you think might be blocking love’s flow in those situations? Could forgiveness play a role, even if it’s a matter of forgiving yourself?

For me, the experience with the woman who embraced me seemingly out-of-the-blue, was all the proof I needed that lack of forgiveness blocks the realization of love’s presence. And blocking love, leaves out goodness. You have to ask yourself if you’re up for that type of sacrifice.

Love Pours Over You

It’s a question Raymond Clarke has to ask himself in the book Love Pour Over Me. For Raymond, the struggle to forgive is rooted in childhood. The final choice he makes will do more than allow him to see (or remain blind) to love’s eternal presence. The final choice he makes will change his life and the lives of several people.

And isn’t this what is happening with your decisions about love and forgiveness? So, what do you think love is? Why do you define love this way? Are you open to seeing love as much more than you imagined? Are you ready to forgive? Are you ready to open to real love?

Here are a few tips that could help you open up to receive love:

  • Write down 5 things about the person you are struggling to forgive that you appreciate
  • Pen a letter to the person, sharing specific ways you feel she/he has wronged you. End the letter by sharing two things about the person you are thankful for.
  • Journal how you feel, penning thoughts that surface as you work to forgive the person. In my case, I’d journal about the woman giving me a hug out of the blue after I spent one to two hours saying “I love you” to her out loud.

Truth is, we cannot exist without love. Therefore, love is always with us. If you don’t feel love’s presence, what do you think it blocking the feeling / thoughts / experience of love? Hopefully, Raymond’s story will help you to spot love blocks as well as motivate you to choose love.

What Are You Afraid of? Regain Your Life

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By Books Author Denise Turney

To regain your life, face what scares you. Fear or love, that is all there is to choose from. What if the only choices that you ever had, that we all have, are between fear and love? Nothing else.

Life seems much more complicated. But is it?

Think back to your childhood. How old were you when you first felt fear, when you first felt afraid?

Light from candle to regain your life
Lit Candle Wix – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Edukeralam, Navaneeth Krishnan S

I remember this golden, brown German Shepherd across the street from where my family lived in Ohio. Back then, I was eight years old. As usual, when I was outside playing – riding a bike, enjoying a game of hopscotch or jumping rope – I was with my siblings and friends.

Fear Offers No Comfort

There certainly was comfort in numbers. Yet, regardless of how many people were outside, when that German Shepherd (his name was “King”) showed up, people darted. I’m talking teenagers and kids. Folks broke out and headed for cover.

All of this fear over a German Shepherd who had broken his backyard chain again. The more intense the fear I was experiencing became, the more angry and helpless I felt. I also wanted the dog to just disappear, making it easy for the entire scene to be over.

Oh, but, when dogs break loose, they don’t go right back from whence they came. Instead, they explore, peeing on bushes and tree trunks. They also like to kick up dirt with their hind feet, as if to let every other dog in the neighborhood know how big and bad they are. And even if they don’t intend to, they scare a lot of kids. (See these tips on how you could face fear and regain your life.)

Ever Changing Fear

My fear of “King” disappeared after my family moved to a different neighborhood. But that wasn’t the end of fear for me. After “King”, there were bullies, spooky movies, the nightly news, and a few bad grades that I was very concerned about showing my dad.

Fast forward to my adult years, and “King” was far at the back of my memory, certainly no longer something that pulled up fear in me. The 12 year old girl I’d been afraid of, the girl I let bully me in elementary school, didn’t even pop into my mind. She was long gone as it relates to fear, totally in the past.

But don’t go thinking that I stopped choosing fear over love. In fact, in place of big neighborhood dogs, school bullies and a bad report card, there were bills, fear of the unknown, fear of love, challenging work assignments and growing numbers of people I knew who were exiting their bodies or transitioning.

Yeah. The things that I chose to allow fear to use to bind me have changed. But that type of change doesn’t mean anything unless I’m choosing love instead of fear.

Regain Your Life – Choose Love Instead of Fear

The good news. It’s a choice that I’m paying attention to, practicing awareness so I can choose love. Thing is, fear, as you can see, takes on a myriad of forms. Its content remains unchanged. But the forms that fear uses seem always in motion.

Oddly, with love, it’s the content that I have long, perhaps always, focused on. Safe, warm feelings, a sense of belonging and conviction that I’m cared for are part of love’s content for me. Doesn’t matter if that content comes through my pet turtle, a friend, relative, engaging in my passion (writing) or listening to the smoothest song. If the content is there, I feel it. I appreciate it.

And the content never changes. It’s one of the things that I absolutely love about love. Perhaps it’s time that we all focused more on love’s content and less on fear and its myriad forms.

Toward this effort, I wrote a book about what fear did to a town in Memphis, Tennessee. The title of that book is Spiral. Read the book and you may be amazed at how far reaching, twisting, blinding and binding fear can get to be. It’s worse than any virus. Once fear takes root, look out. Or better yet, choose love.