Afformation Creates Marketing Plan
God bless Noah St. John, and his open teaching of his new mind technique: The Afformation! Without it, I would never have been able to do what I needed to do for my new literary agent.
My agent is going to New York at the end of October on a sales trip. Part of her agenda is to sell my mystery series The Healing Mysteries of Mex Stone. In order to do that, she needed a marketing plan for the series.
When I read that email, my heart sank. Argh. Marketing. I’m really good at it for other folks but not so much for myself. I don’t know what happens to my brain, but something shuts down when it comes to marketing my own work. I know I’m not the only one with this malaise.
Enter my hero, Noah St. John. I’ve been using his Afformations for months so I was relieved that my brilliant brain came up with this one.
Why is it so easy for me to do the marketing plan?
And, like all afformations, I knew I just had to sit with the question; I didn’t have to answer it.
Here’s what happened: about two days after I starting asking myself this, I looked carefully at the sample fiction plan Nancy’s assistant had sent me. It didn’t look too bad. Then I opened a file and named it Mex Marketing Plan and typed in all the headings from the sample. Closed the file.
Two days more went by. I reopened the file, and voila! The first heading was Title. I changed it to Titles because mysteries are often sold as series. I knew the titles of my first three Mex books: Oklahoma! Hex, Brigadoon Moon, Butterfly Fan. Typed them in. Item #1 done.
Sometimes accomplishments are teeny, tiny steps.
Item #2 Author. Well, I knew that one, too. I use a pseudonym just for fun. Shulamith Burton (a.k.a. Dr. Susan Corso). Done! Breathing easier. All the while I kept afforming. Why is this so easy for me?
#3 Backstory. Hmm, I thought, I have already written this. I checked my original promo document for the series. Sure enough, there it was. Edit/Copy/Paste. Done!
#4 Descriptions. Those are already written, too. E/C/P. Voila!
I won’t bore you with the rest but it ended up 10 pages and I was really proud when I put it in the Priority Mail envelope for my sweetie to take to the post office and send.
The miracles that abounded were entirely amazing …
My friend the academic rewrote all the blurbs making them much more efficient and intriguing sounding … thanks, Rona.
My friend the marketing wizard added his two cents in … making me sound like I knew what I was talking about in the business part of marketing … thanks, Court.
My friend the comedian and author himself made the time to tighten the blurbs and descriptions even more … he also made some stellar online suggestions … thanks, Eddie.
My friend and press agent made the time to read the whole thing over before I sent it … her final comment was that it was a home run … thanks, Jen.
And it turned out to be a lot of work but ultimately very satisfying because I had a tool to use when I got the weirds, friends who stepped up to help me in awesome ways, and the courage to keep going.
So when you’re stuck, start to use your brain to help you. Afform!
P.S. Typical Libra. I sent my agent three different cover sheets because I couldn’t decide which one to use. She’ll know what’s right.
spiritual | seedsdrcorso | 
October 14, 2009 9:24 am
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