Restarting

For so many years, much of my life focused on getting a career as a romance novelist. Honing my craft, learning the industry, really concentrating on doing everything right as a professional author. Always the efforts were fueled by the dream.

Now, after the experience I described in a previous post, I've hauled out the jumper cables and am working to restart and charge up the career by first revitalizing my two dead-in-the-water books and then launching new material.

It's a whole different feeling. The dream has changed. The wide-eyed, heart-grabbing optimism has morphed into a sharp-edged practicality and a business plan. I've checked off the first item on that plan and decided on a cover artist. By the end of the day, I'll have gathered the necessary information and sent it to him. I'm also going through my website to see what needs to be tweaked so that it will be ready for the new covers when they're available. I need the website in shape before the books launch.

While covers are designed and the site is tweaked, I'll go the books to make a few corrections we missed the last time out.

Do you see the step by step precision in the plan? I'm in Phase One -- Preparing to Launch. Phase Two is getting the books formatted for electronic readers. Phase Three involves setting the marketing. Phase Four is the actual launch.

I'm definitely accessing two sides to my personality type - the imaginative creator with lots of ideas and the clear-cut planner who sets out a method to accomplish those ideas. The planner was never as developed when I was younger. I'm glad it's more evident now. I need those skills to be successful in my day job and the practice I've had in recent years will serve me well in the restart.

Now to work.