Fathers Raising Children as Single Parents

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By Books Writer Denise Turney

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Fathers raising children as single parents was nearly unheard of 50 years ago. I can still hear my father express how he wished there was someone he could talk with about raising daughters as a single parent. But there was no one he knew who could offer him guidance. So, my father turned to my aunts and grandmother, resources who, thankfully, turned out to be very good ones.

Fathers Raising Children as Single Parents

The thing is that since 1960, the numbers of fathers raising children as single parents has increased. According to the Pew Research Center, the numbers have increased nine-fold since 1960. As of 2011, 2.6 million households were led by single fathers.

Many of these single fathers live with someone. For example, these dads may have remarried or be living with a partner who they aren’t married to. On the other hand, about 52% of fathers raising children as single parents are divorced, widowed, not living with a partner or men who never married.

Also, becoming a single father happens to men as early as the teenage years. Additionally, fathers who are raising kids alone have a broad range of educational levels, from less than a high school diploma to a postgraduate degree.

Raising Children Alone

Fortunately, changing perceptions of what it takes to raise healthy children has removed some of the shock and lack of acceptance around fathers raising kids alone. Although raising kids alone offers challenges for both men and women, children raised by loving and caring men who are single parents may best know the value that these single parents offer.

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My father had a positive influence on me and my siblings. Our mother passing was his doorway into single parenthood. Despite pleas from other relatives, my father would not break us up, choosing the single parent route instead.

His courage, insight, guidance, leadership, active listening skills and business savvy were contagious. There were times when I swore that my dad was born for parenting. Looking back, I can see how his parents’ love, support, care and guidance had helped to prepare him for raising sons alone as well as raising daughters by himself.

Love of a Single Father

In spite of long odds, my father didn’t lose one child. Each of his children grew into a responsible, caring, giving and courageous adult. To this day, I wonder if I could have accomplished what he did while raising five children alone.

And again, his success as a single parent was, in large part, due to how he was raised. In fact, it’s easy to see the influence prior generations have on single parents. After all, we often repeat what was done to us until we forgive the past, let go, and change our thinking, choices and behavior.

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When Parenting Gets Hard

This is part of what’s illustrated in Love Pour Over Me, a book that spotlights the effects of raising a son alone when you’re not ready to parent. Adult children and older teens who grew up in families where single parents struggled may especially find strength, hope and healing while reading Love Pour Over Me.

After all, even if single parent fathers did receive an upbringing that prepared them to effectively operate a household, there are challenges. One parent can’t be everything to a child. Even with the best intentions, mistakes happen. Parents get tired. Life happens.

Love Pour Over Me

Love Pour Over Me is a book that follows a young man from high school well into adulthood, showing how, despite deep pain brought on from growing up under the guidance of a struggling father, it’s possible to keep progressing. Even more, Love Pour Over Me shows that it’s possible to grow in love with a soul mate after enduring an emotionally and physically hard childhood.

Yet, above all of these rewards, it’s witnessing the evolvement of the father’s and son’s relationship as the story unfolds that may indeed offer readers the most healing. After all, single fathers love their children deeply. They love their children even if they’re struggling with a personal issue which is why these fathers seek out and accept help.

Breaking Free from Suffering

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By Books Writer Denise Turney

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Breaking free from suffering takes more than desire. At its start, suffering is sharp, confusing. You don’t understand why someone is causing you pain. Or perhaps it’s an experience like an illness, abject poverty or a destructive storm that thrust you into a state of confusion. Regardless of the cause, if suffering continues for long periods, you could start to believe that pain is inevitable, simply a part of life.

Steps to Breaking Free from Suffering

The only experience that might shake that belief is witnessing someone who’s not suffering, to actually see someone who has learned to break free from suffering. This is when freedom from living in pain can really reward, not just you but, those around you. But, how to break free from suffering?

  • Understand that you have a True Self that rests in peace and joy.
  • To experience your right to freedom, practice watching your thoughts pass, similar to watching clouds float by. Keep your thoughts free of judgment. Instead, just watch them pass. Also, watch how your thoughts change. Eventually, you may observe that you aren’t the thoughts that pass through your brain. As a tip, you may find this to be a good exercise if your thoughts create the emotion of fear.
  • Pause before you take action if you feel off center or as if you’re giving into habit or an addictive way of thinking. This may not feel easy, especially if erroneous beliefs have been practiced a long time and seem like truth.

More Ways to Start Breaking Free from Suffering

  • Read books about people who have learned to break free of suffering from loneliness and other types of suffering. For example, you could read biographies, autobiographies and memoirs of people who had extremely challenging childhoods only to go on and experience joyous adult years.
  • To stay encouraged, engage in at least three activities each day that cause you to feel peace and joy. For example, you could enjoy a bike ride, work in a garden, walk outdoors, listen to music that you love or talk with a friend.
  • In a safe place, stand in front of a mirror naked and say “I love you” to yourself.
  • Accept gifts that are given to you sincerely.
  • Treat yourself the way you would treat your best friend.
  • Write in a journal to express concerns you’re having. As simple as it sounds, this is an effective way to remain free of mental and emotional blocks.

Right to Freedom

Depending on your beliefs and childhood programming, it could take years to break free from suffering. This may be because your own thoughts are the root of your suffering. Seek help if needed, especially if you’re experiencing psychological suffering.

Yet, remember that you are responsible for your thoughts, beliefs and choices. Keep your freedom of choice in all circumstances.

Also, continue to break free from suffering. Don’t give up. Never give up on freedom. So be it if this path to freedom includes meditating, sitting still, journaling, traveling, meeting new people, dancing or working with a professional. Keep loving yourself. And keep believing in your personal freedom, your true inner right to freedom.

If you want encouragement as you continue to break free, consider Mulukan’s story in the book, Long Walk Up. This young orphan girl’s fictional story may leave a lasting impression on you, the type of impression that propels you onward.

Books That Really Make You Think Aren’t Always Bestsellers

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By African American Author Denise Turney

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Books that really make you think aren’t always New York Times best sellers. In fact, if you’ve loved reading books for years, you’ve stumbled across lesser-known books that have had a deep impact on you. And it doesn’t take a long time to realize that you’re treating yourself to a powerful experience. You know how easily a masterful writer can pull you into a story, leaving you changed.

Powerful Books That Make You Think

Whether it’s an autobiography, memoir, book of poetry or great work of fiction, powerful books are easy to connect to. You come to love major and minor characters, refusing to put a book down because you have to know what’s going to happen to the protagonist.

Before you know it, your defenses are down. You don’t even think about becoming defensive after a character with a struggle similar to yours enters the story. It’s as if the challenge is no longer yours, as if it all belongs to the character and, in that, you’re set free.

Instead of becoming defensive as you examine a personal challenge through the eyes of a book character, you keep reading, enjoying the work that’s entertaining and enlightening. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Moby Dick, Go Tell It On The Mountain, To Kill A Mockingbird, Stamped From The Beginning, Awaken The Giant Within and The 5 Love Languages are books that have left a deep imprint on readers.

Deep Heart and Mind Work

Even more, these books have stood the test of time. Other books like Edgar Allen Poe’s, The Raven; Ann Petry’s, The Street and Sylvia Plath’s, The Bell Jar, leave a deep psychological imprint because of how the author exposes their own insecurities in their writing. You might feel sad for characters in the books, or you might feel a kinship with these characters.

Books that make you think offer the gift that strengthens your awareness that you belong. Even if you’ve only been reading books for a few months, you may be surprised at how much you have learned. Better yet, you may be surprised at how much you’ve grown since you started reading books.

diverse books that make you think

It’s part of the reason why books keep attracting new readers. Discover a new book and you can’t wait to share the story with friends. Good books offer:

  • Empathy or the ability to see a situation through someone else’s eyes
  • Deeper understanding of yourself
  • Better choices for ways out of struggle, failure or conflict
  • Appreciation for deep, life experiences
  • Early virtual abilities to travel to new places using your imagination
  • Stirring up of courage
  • Sharper inner vision
  • Hope in a time of trouble
  • Stories that help you heal
  • Pathway to understand different personalities
  • Insight into what could be driving you, a relative or a friend
  • Entertainment that excites, leaving lasting good memories

World of Books at Local Bookstores

If you’re looking for added impact while reading, consider listening to audio books. Why? Audio books engage more of your senses. With audiobooks, you can stimulate your visual and hearing as well as your emotional senses. You can also enjoy a good story while you’re driving, riding a train, in-flight or cleaning your home.

You might be surprised how many hidden gems are at bookstores near you. Local bookstores carry out-of-print and backlist books that you might not otherwise find. These local retailers invest in the communities their stores are located in, getting involved in youth events, literacy initiatives and social causes.

It’s easy to feel at home at these local retailers. Many local store owners are okay with you sitting on the floor, surrounding by a pile of manuscripts, reading a few pages from several of the titles. The Book Worm in Cranbury, New Jersey and Rare and Classics in Trenton, New Jersey are two local retailers that really make it easy to relax into a good story.

In fact, you might not be able to enjoy a similar experience at any other retailer. On the other hand, you could explore books to read online. But you might not find the best rare gems even at the largest online book retailers. And you certainly wouldn’t get that down-home feeling while you’re sourcing for new titles.

Also, whether you’re reading Love Pour Over Me, Long Walk Up or The Matter Is Life, open-up to receive what good books offer. You might find a long-awaited healing as you continue reading these and other good books.

How To Make The Most Of Writer Conferences

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By African American Book Writer Denise Turney

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Writer conferences, whether virtual or in-person, are among the best places to introduce new, classic and backlist books to book buyers. As an author, just make sure that writer conferences you go to have a spot on the agenda for authors to sell and autograph their books. In addition to introducing titles to new readers, here are practical ways to make the most out of writer conferences.

Writer Conference Strategy Tips

  • Bring samples of your writings – Edit and sharpen your best writings. Bring these writings with you to writer conferences you attend, especially if there’s an option to share your manuscripts with literary agents, editors and book publishers.
  • Attend three or more conference events – Many writer conferences have events that writers can attend. To get the most out of writer conferences, attend three or more events. For example, you could attend a panel discussion with authors who have written New York Times best sellers. Even more, you could attend a writer’s critique event and a book marketing discussion.
  • Meet book editors – Find out the names of book editors attending writer conferences. Introduce yourself to two or more editors that specialize in editing the genre of books that you write.
  • Share works with literary agents – Place your writings in a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) and share the works with literary agents. Also, ensure that the works are copyrighted.

More Ways to Make the Most of Literary Conferences

  • Giveaway free writing excerpts – Treat book buyers who attend writer conferences to free excerpts from your poems, short stories, novels and other books that you are working on. But don’t just give out free writing excerpts. Add your writer website URL to each page of the excerpt. That way conference attendees can keep in touch with you and maybe even buy your books.
  • Network – Introduce yourself to other writers attending the conferences. Consider exchanging website URLs and email addresses. Why? Writers you meet at the conferences could keep you aware of upcoming writer events, places where you could sell more books.
  • Blend with book festivals – Aim for writer conferences that have book festivals at the end of the conferences. If not, attend a mix of writer conferences and book festivals throughout the year.
  • Newsletter signups – Ask conference attendees to sign up to receive your free weekly or monthly literary newsletter.
  • Meet book buyers – Don’t just sell your works. Ask book buyers questions, getting to know these readers. It’s a good way to build relationships.

Beauty Of Writer Conferences

It’s possible to sell 10 to 50 or more copies of your books at a well marketed writers conference, especially if the conference has a strong brand. The National Black Writers Conference, New York City Writers Conference, International Dublin Writers Conference and Kauai Writers Conference are conferences that have been supporting writers, editors, publishers and readers for years.

Local and regional writers attend these conferences. Because of this, the conferences are great networking opportunities. Take advantage of these networking opportunities. Get up and say “hello” to other writers attending the conferences. Who knows? This is where you might develop relationships with other writers, the types of relationships that find you and these writers sharing book marketing, book promotion and book writing tips.

In addition, you might land a book deal with a book publisher. That, or you might strike a contract with a literary agent who has editor and publisher connections to secure you a book deal. But first you need to take the right actions to make the most out of writer conferences.

Emotional Stories Readers Love To Connect With

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By Books Writer Denise Turney

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Good books touch emotional cores. It’s these emotional stories, written by emerging writers and established authors that resonate with readers. Even more, readers love stories that fuel them with emotion and transport them away from their everyday lives. But novelists can’t just transport readers, they have to create characters, dialogue and plots that dig up deep emotion. In fact, emotion may be the key difference that separates average books from top sellers.

Characters Drive Storytelling

Another benefit readers look for in storytelling is for characters to take surprising risks. They also seek tension, the type of suspense that creates an emotional connection between characters and readers. Now, here’s a key.

To achieve great storytelling, dialogue, character development and a tense, believable plot aren’t enough. Readers must be able to get inside the minds of your books characters. They need to feel like they know the characters personally. Even more, readers need to understand character motivations, fears and strengths.

Elements In Best Books To Read

One way to do this is to have a character make a vow she does not intend to keep. For example, a real estate manager could vow to her team that she loves her job and plans to continue managing at the real estate firm after she completes her psychology master’s degree when, in actuality, what she really wants is to retire and start a nonprofit counseling agency in order to avoid facing a financial scandal that’s on the verge of being exposed at the real estate firm.

But writers can’t just spring the contrast on readers. Instead, they have to build tension and reveal the struggle between what characters say and do. It’s this slow build of tension that’s found in the best books to read. And it can take years of fiction writing for authors to acquire this skill.

Also, whether it’s an autobiography or work of fiction, writers need to take readers to places that readers haven’t been before. It’s easy to do this with science fiction books, not as easy with contemporary fiction.

Classic Emotional Stories

This is where the mental workings of characters helps to strengthen stories. Ralph Ellison pulls this off in Invisible Man. Ellison masterfully takes readers inside the mind of the book’s main character, an African American man who leaves the South and relocates to New York. The move doesn’t bring the man what he’d expected it to. It’s from here that Ellison takes the man into a basement where the tautness, the powerful emotion of the storytelling takes over.

Invisible Man left an imprint on me when I read the book. Ralph Ellison’s writing skill blessed my soul. His writing took me into that basement with the book’s main character. Before I knew it, I was pulling, literally rooting, for that man to do what it took to win, to get back on his feet and rise.

Knowing this, it’s highly recommended that writers who want their stories to become among the best books to read, invest the time to actually read powerful books. Surprisingly an autobiography could help writers spot ways to sharpen their characters.

After all, when you think about it, don’t the best books of all time have such deeply developed characters that the characters feel like real people? But don’t just read books until you unconsciously spot the elements of great characterization, keep writing to develop your own voice, your own powerful writing style.

How to Gain Victory While Passing Through Life Storms

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By Books Writer Denise Turney

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Gaining victory while passing through life storms can feel so difficult until just the thought of taking a forward step could generate feelings of frustration, fatigue, hopelessness and exhaustion. While passing through life storms, a success mindset may not always produce a reward. In fact, the harder you push for success, the more roadblocks you might face.

Inner Storms

Because storms in your life are times of great change, you may experience stress, anxiety and other emotional and psychological issues. For example, if you feel like “the storm is raging in my life,” you might experience depression, struggle to get and stay asleep, gain or lose weight and have trouble focusing.

The New Zealand Health Promotion Agency shares that you may feel like your brain won’t stop, won’t rest. Also, you might feel numb, low on energy or restless. Other signs that you’re facing the storms of life include:

  • Becoming easily agitated
  • Wanting to be alone instead of with other people
  • Nervousness
  • Sadness
  • Troubling dreams
  • Feeling disconnected
  • Thinking that life has no meaning

Outer Life Storms

These are inner signs that storms in your life may be becoming overwhelming. Outer signs that facing the storms of life may be too much include:

  • Trouble making decisions
  • Staying up late at night
  • Bodily pains that seemingly have no cause
  • Starting fights
  • Not talking with other people
  • No longer participating in enjoyable events

So, how do you gain victory as you pass through life storms? On the road to success, be honest about what you are experiencing, including how you are feeling. Talk with a trustworthy friend. Definitely stay connected to family and friends.

This latter point cannot be stressed enough. When you’re in a storm, it is so important to stay connected to others. The deeper you go into a storm, the more tempted you might be to isolate. If you make visiting, playing, dining and traveling with people you trust a part of your daily or weekly routine, it might be easier to steer clear of isolation should a storm show up.

Ways to Pass Through Life Storms

Also, rest when you feel overwhelmed. For instance, you could take a break from watching the news, step away from social media and steer clear of discussing heavy topics with friends. Of course, seek professional help if you continue to feel overwhelmed as you deal with storms in your life.

Here are other ways to keep advancing. As tough as it may be, remember that perseverance is the key to success. Assistance to persevere may come to you as you read or listen to other people’s success stories.

Encourage yourself by reading about the habits of successful people who have come through severe life storms. Reading success stories of people who have overcome near impossible odds can prove tremendously empowering. So too could reading spiritual books that value all life, books that focus on love rather than judgment and shame.

Achieving Victory

And again – don’t overdo work. Victory while passing through life storms requires patience. You need to be patient with yourself. But you also need to keep going however slowly. If you’re in the habit of practicing awareness due to meditation, practiced honesty or daily body and emotion scans, you should notice when you feel more energized, when you’re starting to heal. Depending on the storm that you’re going through, it could take months to start to feel energized and as if your life has a remarkable and glorious unfolding ahead.

Once you catch your wind, this may be the time to push forward, recognizing the power of success. Eventually, you’ll pass through storms in your life. Yet, in this world, new storms, new challenges, will crop up. So, celebrate success each time you experience it. Each victory can serve as evidence, as a real-life witness, that you have what it takes to achieve victory even as you’re facing the storms of life. So, keep advancing, one victory at a time.

Let Love Relationships Change the World

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By Books Author Denise Turney

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Love relationships change everything in the world because, thankfully, all that is true is connected in love. That’s possible because you’re nonphysical. Once you see the connectedness in all that is real or true, you may perceive how your thoughts, beliefs and actions impact all that is. In that alone, you can receive an experience that the ego continuously searches for but never finds – evidence of your unlimited power, evidence that you are love.

Power of Love to Change Your Life

You have the power to change your life and impact the people around you. Even more, your love relationships may yield greater results than you imagine. Also, these love relationships include romantic relationships, colleague relationships, family relationships and friendships. They also include people you try to avoid or deem unworthy of your kindness, love and care.

However, it’s easy to only consider romantic relationships when you think about love relationships that you nurture and invest in. Here’s the thing. If you’re following a decades-old romantic relationship path, you might be searching for someone you deem to be “special”.

That means that you don’t think about getting closer with family, friends, colleagues, neighbors and anyone else in communication, social engagements, challenging discussions and fun in ways that forces you to reexamine old beliefs you may have held onto for far too long. You’re just on a hunt for this “special” person. In fact, you might have already created this “special” person in your imagination, going so far as to give this person a height, weight, smile, personality, job and financial makeup.

Exciting New Love Relationships

Good news is that you could meet someone who seemingly fits the bill of the “idol” that you created. Even better, the start of this “love” relationship could charge you with feelings of excitement, aliveness, fun, safety, peace and acceptance. Right off the dribble, you might even decide that this “special” person is worth sacrificing for.

Signs that you’ve made this judgment (or decision) include:

  • Sacrificing or reducing the time you spend with family and friends
  • Participating in sex acts you don’t enjoy in effort to make this “special” person happy
  • Visiting places (e.g. golf course, spa, mall, worship centers) that you have no interest in or don’t believe in – again, all for the person you judged or decided is “special”
  • Investing money in the “special” person (again, this is someone who you decided is “special”)
  • Preaching to yourself that what the “special” person wants is more important than what you want

Also, you might think that God will be especially pleased with you if you sacrifice for the “special” person. Clearly, you would have set yourself up for an impossible task. Why? Admittedly, it may take time in the relationship or several experiences you have with this person. But eventually you’re going to see that not only is this person not “special” – if you’re fortunate, you’ll also see that there are no “special” people anywhere.

Don’t Give Up On Healthy Love Relationships

Don’t give up. Despite the temptation, don’t toss in the towel on the relationship if it’s healthy. This means, there’s no physical, verbal, financial or emotional violence in the relationship. A key reason not to give up on the relationship is the fact that, if you do quit on the relationship, you will likely merely start searching for another “special” person.

But remember that there are no “special” people. So, if you sever the relationship, the best you could do is find another illusion of a “special” person. And it may be at the point of discontent (when you realize that the person isn’t “special”) that your love relationship could truly change for the better!

This is when the love relationship could really deepen, helping both your partner and you to awaken more and more to real love, truth, peace and joy. Furthermore, it’s at these levels in a love relationship where your relationship could start to change the world. And again, this can be done with relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues, spouses or anyone. You just have to decide to only love.

True Love Changes World

Keep in mind all that is true is connected. Can you see how entering into real love, a love that transcends the body, could have a profound impact? For starters, you’d not only be teaching and learning patience. You’d be teaching and learning the value of patience (not tolerance – patience). Because you have to be patient with yourself to stick with and learn these new love lessons. And, you certainly have to be patient with yourself long enough to see real love work.

Choose and practice only love and you’d be teaching and learning trust, honesty, freedom and the fact that what you really are (far more than a body) can never be hurt. And, you’d be teaching and learning that joining in love, even as it regards communication, with another offers rewards that keeping separate from others never will.

You might not notice it at first. But you’d also come to see that you’re lovable as others return love to you. After all, if you’re being loved, you have to be lovable. Another benefit is that you’d see that you can and do love. Watch what happens then. Love relationships, including the love relationship that you have with yourself, really do change the world. But first you have to commit to love.

When It Doesn’t Feel like Love Is Enough

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By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney

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Love holds all that lives together. In fact, it is so vast that it’s impossible to describe. Talking and singing about it doesn’t bring it more fully into your awareness. It has to be shared, experienced. When you realize that love is enough, you’re encouraged, inspired and invigorated. You also tap into the vision and courage to live the life you came here to enjoy.

When Questions Keep Surfacing

But is love always enough?

It sure doesn’t feel like it’s enough when you’ve endured a traumatic childhood. If you spent the first 12 years of your life being told that you aren’t enough, that you’re less than others and that you don’t belong, as sweet as they may sound to you as an adult, all the sweet messages, quotes and songs about love won’t be enough.

Why? You’ve probably come to believe that you aren’t worthy of love. In fact, you might even be afraid of love. This is the crossroads that Raymond Clarke finds himself facing in the book, Love Pour Over Me. His mother abandoned him when he was only two years old. On top of that, his father has untreated alcoholism. And his father is mean – real mean to young Raymond.

Yet, the only person who can demonstrate love to Raymond is his father. Although Raymond’s story is a fictional account of childhood trauma and its far-reaching effects, the story, unfortunately, mirrors the real-life experiences of millions of children, teens and adults around the world. It might even mirror your own life.

Signs You’re Struggling to Believe Love Is Enough

But how do you know you’re running from the very thing you swear you want? Pay attention to how you feel when people talk about their relationships. Do you think people are lying or exaggerating when they say they are happy and thankful for the healthy relationship they are in?

Here are more signs that you might not believe the source of life is enough:

  • Close relationships scare you
  • You pull away from people when you start to feel emotionally close to them
  • Excuses for why you can’t attend social gatherings are generally how you respond to requests to have fun and be vulnerable
  • Keeping in touch with friends isn’t in the top three on your priority list
  • Living alone, not just at home, but in life feel safer than letting other people in

Love And Friendship

It’s this type of childhood trauma that can leave you accepting mistreatment from people who show you an ounce of kindness, even from men and women who ultimately intend to cause you more harm. Let this vicious cycle start turning and you may spend the rest of your time in this world convinced that love simply is not enough.

Fortunately, there is a path out of this vicious cycle. It starts with telling yourself that you are loved, worthy to receive love and created as an extension of love. You may have to do this for months, perhaps years, before you start to believe it, especially if you’ve spent years hearing and believing the opposite.

And, you have to demonstrate to yourself that you’re worthy of love. Do this while you choose people to allow into your life. For starters and in safety, bid farewell to people who traumatize or abuse you. Do it safely. But start making decisions that find you surrounded by people who truly care about you.

Love Is Enough

Yes. It would have been good if your parents and elders had demonstrated for you that love is enough. But, if they didn’t, you’re going to have to do this for yourself. Also, pray for loving people to come into your life. Ask for guidance to know who these people are. This starts to happen for Raymond at college.

As more loving people enter your life, you’ll start to change. You’ll start to blossom. And you’ll know genuine love messages when you hear them.

Perhaps most of all, you’ll start allowing yourself to receive and give true love. It can take hard inner work to get there. You might even have to go into psychotherapy, meditate, read books on love and more. But, along the way, you should come to know that love is enough. Love really is enough.

Achieve Book Marketing Success from Home

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By African American Books Author Denise Turney

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Book marketing is work. In fact, marketing books is so much work that authors can easily spend 90% or more time solely on marketing after they publish new books. Fortunately, there are no-cost to low-cost ways to get the word out about your books without leaving home.

Book Marketing Festivals

For example, The Everywhere Book Fest, the Miami Book, FLIP, Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, Brooklyn Book Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Harlem Book Fair pull in hundreds, some of the events attract thousands, of book lovers and book buyers. For instance, in 2018 more than 250,000 people attended the Miami Book Fair.

Clearly, book festivals are great places to implement author marketing strategies like distributing postcards, handing out brochures, flyers and free book excepts. Also, large book festivals are great places for authors to talk with book lovers and book buyers face to face.

Authors who ask visitors who stop by their festival booth to sign up for their digital newsletter, could send festival visitors holiday greetings, birthday greetings and other book marketing messages post festival. After all, a key benefit of marketing books is relationship building. As an author, if you want to expand your readership and increase book sales, make developing and deepening relationships with readers a priority.

Ways to Market Your Books from Home

But what if you’re an author who’s unable to attend book festivals to market your books? There are ways to connect with readers online and start developing new, rewarding reader relationships. These are genuine relationships, not communication pathways to saturate readers with “buy my book” messages.

Below are ebook marketing, Kindle marketing and other novel marketing actions that you could complete to introduce new readers to your books from home:

  • Social media marketing books – Schedule social media posts using automated systems like HootSuite, Buffer, etc. But don’t just post book excerpts, answer questions, respond to book polls and like and comment on other authors’ and readers’ social media posts.
  • Amazon Ads – With the right keywords, authors could increase book sales by running Amazon automatic and sponsored ads. Consider taking free Amazon ad webinars to learn how to market your book on Amazon. Before running campaigns to market your books. Also, review ad reports, looking for effective keywords, twice a month. Be open to making campaign changes until book sales increase and your ad spend costs drops. The goal is to turn a profit, so watch your ad reports and make adjustments as needed.
  • Virtual readings – To market your books, you can host virtual book readings on platforms like YouTube and Facebook Live.
  • Digital newsletters – Create and distribute digital newsletters. Add newsletter sign-up forms to your official author website. There are email marketing systems like MailChimp and Constant Contact that you could use to manage digital newsletters.
  • Press releases – Write and send press releases to media.
  • Postcards – Design electronic postcards and send to book club presidents and book lovers.
  • Private group discussions – Hold discussions about your books at private social media groups.
  • Virtual book festivals – Attend virtual book festivals.
  • Blog – Start a book blog and link it to your website. Use Google Keyword Planner to find effective keywords to add to your blog articles.

Building Reader Relationships

EBook marketing isn’t the only book marketing strategy that’s a good fit for authors who market their books from home. Tools like social media, electronic postcards, brochures and digital flyers have made it easier to market print books from home.

However, authors who truly gain from book marketing, focus on developing reader relationships. They may send readers a birthday card, holiday greetings or attend book club events, places where they might not sell a single book. Yet, as readers start to feel that authors sincerely value reader-author connections and strive to create the best stories for them to enjoy, those readers may turn into an author’s regular book buyers.

And it’s that reader and author connection that’s often the biggest reward. Little surpasses the reward of hearing a book buyer share how much she enjoyed reading your novel.  Even better is hearing a reader share how deeply your book touched him, perhaps inspiring him to make a good life change. The good news is that authors can make these reader connections from home or abroad.