GOOOOOOD AFTER-FREAKIN-NOON! Happy Tuesday. How are things where you are? It’s kind of foggy here, no big deal though. I do believe that the majority of Ohio drivers forget how to drive in the snow, fog, rain, hail, etc. Essentially, if it isn’t sunny and 75 with zero clouds at all, the whole state loses its mind.
It rains like half the days out of the year and it snows for the other half, so I don’t know why we all freak out! It’s okay…deep breaths, they’re just snowflakes. They’re just raindrops. Everything is going to be just fine!
End rant.
So, here’s what’s on my mind today, there is a lot that I don’t know. I was thinking about my platform and how I have built it up nicely in a short amount of time, but I noticed I haven’t really hit my stride with the correct audience yet.
My target audience would be readers, probably sixteen years old and up, who like to read suspense, thriller, or mystery and ideally those readers would be engaged on social media as that is where I tend to announce new projects, discounts, etc.
I have built up my twitter, for instance to over 1,200 followers, but most of them are writers, not readers! Now, don’t get me wrong, writers read more than most people, but they are spending most of their time writing!
I need to be connecting with more people who enjoy reading in their down time. Reading is what they like to do as opposed to tv shows, movies or video games. I need that because those are the people who are going to have time to read my stories and really enjoy them, not that I want to alienate anyone else because I don’t!
My point is that for a moment there, I thought I was the marketing king. The GURU of building platforms, because I have built up several of them to good numbers, but it turns out I had the wrong target!
This goes to show that no one knows everything and, spoiler alert, we will NEVER know everything, but that is what makes life so amazing.
You can never know everything, so you can keep learning forever and ever. There is always something new to pick up, a new skill to master, a different hobby to try out, a new writing style or genre to venture into.
We should never, ever stop learning and improving. Some people are upset that we are in the era of online courses and it seems like everyone has something to sell you. However, I will say, as someone who has taken a bunch of courses on different subjects, we live in the era of self-education.
School didn’t teach me a quarter of what I DO know regarding business, production, productivity, marketing, promotion, etc. I learned almost all of it on my own, much of it via online courses!
I will also comment that I have yet to regret a single course purchase. I think the issue is that people expect to purchase a $50 course and have their lives change overnight and to have all the answers going forward.
I am not normally a bubble burster, but I have to be in this case. That ^^^ is not the way it works. If you can take even one golden nugget of information away from a course that you can then implement in your business or process, it was worth it! It made you better!
HOWEVER, it is not going to change your life until you do something with it. Nothing will happen if you don’t implement it. I love to learn and personally, when I take a course, I take a stupid amount of notes as I go through.
Once, I’m done, I will organize them better and make myself a To-Do list to implement them into my business. I then leave that list sitting in the middle of my desk until I do it! I don’t just tuck it away and never look at it again because THAT is when it becomes a waste.
My products, aka my books, their promotion, my other platforms, my website and just generally how I run my book business have all changed drastically because I am open to learning from others who have done what I want to do.
Don’t get me wrong here, I do not use and I do not recommend using just anyone, because, as I stated above, just about everyone who has any kind of platform or following has a course to sell and not all of them are full of valuable information.
My suggestion is to do your homework. Figure out the people who are doing what you would like to do and doing it well. That doesn’t just mean that you like their stuff so buy their course! They should also be experiencing some level of success at what they are doing, in my opinion.
For instance, I have gone through two different courses in the last week from a self-published author named Adam Croft. He is a best-selling author in the UK and has sold millions of copies of his books worldwide. So, having that information, it is abundantly clear to me that he knows what he is doing and therefore I feel very comfortable with learning from him!
Anyways, I am here, essentially, to tell you not to be angry at or afraid of the online learning era. Take advantage of it. We can learn so much from others and this is the only time in history that we have this much information available to us! Be an opportunist! Seek out the open doors and think about walking through them, they are ripe for the picking!
I want to end with a joke and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have all day:
Why can’t you take a turkey to church?
They use FOWL language!
HAHAHA!
Nice.
Alright. Get out there and tackle the world. Kick its ass. Show it who the damn boss is and tell it to freakin like it. Chase whatever your dreams are today and chase them hard. No brake pedal people, accelerator all the way!
Tyler Porter Books 