Nov 2, 2015

Things to Celebrate in October - Including Book Marketing

This October was the 35th anniversary of my being fired from my Engineering job for taking too much vacation. I have not had a regular job since then. These quotations apply:
"Hard work is no match for relaxed, creative action." 
— from The Lazy Person's Guide to Success 

 "Those who make the worst use of time most complain of its shortness." 
— Jean de La Bruyère 

 "Sometimes it’s important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it’s essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow." 
— Douglas Pagels 

 "The work ethic is a terrible mistake — a cute term gone haywire. 
 — from "The Lazy Person’s Guide to Success" 

"If people knew what they had to do to be successful, most people wouldn't. "
— Lord Thomson of Fleet 

"If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." 
— Dolly Parton

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." 
— Michelangelo

What's more, in late October I did a tally and realized that my books have now sold over 900,000 copies worldwide since I started self-publishing in September 1989. That’s an average of 34, 615 copies per year over 26 years. 
Still more, Book marketing guru John Kremer on Facebook said he was looking for more ideas for the new edition of his book “1,001 Ways to Market Your Books”. So I sent him a few of my marketing techniques — which I didn’t think he would use. Surprisingly (to me), he did a blog post about some of them:
Of course, sending John Kremer some of my marketing techniques is another marketing technique of mine to get me publicity in the new edition of his book. As it turns out, I got publicity on his blog post too. Some more words of wisdom:
"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both." 
— Francoise Rene Auguste Chateaubriand