Reinventing Yourself is Possible!!!

After I had children, it wasn’t feasible to be traveling and performing as the musician I had always been. But I needed to find a way to make a living, and provide for my children and their future. I always knew I wanted to write a book, but it didn’t seem feasible from all of the stories I’d heard about how impossible it was to get a book published. So, I self published last year, in May of 2008. My mom was so excited, and bought a few copies. So did my aunt in California, as well as my best friend from high school… and the nice lady next door ordered a copy of my book for her daughter’s wedding shower.

Very nice. But now what?

I embarked on a journey to learn as much as I could about selling through non-traditional methods that had little to do with bookstore sales, since that wasn’t an option anyway. I learned that corporations are often interested in using books as premium incentives to give to their customers or simply as gifts to their employees.

Over many months, I studied the top gurus ranging from authors and publishers, to media trainers, agents, radio hosts, producers, distributers and more. I began to understand the secret that successful authors know; and that is, that they have learned how to use their book as a tool to build their business. The secret to creating a business and selling lots and lots of books, is none other than knowing how to get massive PUBLICITY! So, rising to the challenge, I set out to get major (and free) publicity for my book, using the strategies I’d been learning, and put them into practice, full-force.

When I first learned about a class on how to turn your book into an Amazon.com Bestseller, I knew that this process could take months of dedication and hours of concentrated work. Many people said that it was very difficult to reach the #1 position, and that even so, why spend so much money and time on something that might only lead to a few hundred sales, at best? But I kept affirming to myself, “I am a #1 Amazon.com bestselling author!” So, I kept on reaching out to JV partners month after month, personalizing each and every note, keeping in touch with everyone regularly to make sure that I established a good relationship with them, and hopefully ensure that they would come through with their promise of emailing an announcement for me on my launch day—as the secret to an Amazon.com bestseller campaign is to get a bunch of people to buy your book on a certain day, by offering them an incentive such as free bonus gifts.

Finally, the big day came … and the server crashed! I had 101 partners mailing out to their lists, over a million eyeballs—and the link didn’t work! I was devastated! But due to the dedication and help of a team of amazing technical support people, I was able to move the campaign over to another server, and by 2:30 p.m. ET the campaign was back up and running. On Monday, November 3, the DIL Rules hit #1 in Wedding Showers on Amazon.com. I did a little victory dance all day long!

The results? Since reaching bestseller status, I’ve been a guest on over 100 radio shows and listed in several print magazines such as Obvious, For the Bride, My Day, and have been featured in Tyra.com and MomLogic.com. I’ve been a guest on Fox and Friends, Rachel Ray, and was a repeat guest on the nationally syndicated “The Daily Buzz” as an In-Law expert, and got 1-800-flowers.com to sponsor me by creating a full page ad for the back of my book. As well, I was asked to co-host an exciting new book show contest for authors called “Blurb!”

I now have a speaking career. I am a workshop and teleseminar leader, radio host and personal marketing assistant for authors. My book helps raise money for the the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and I am currently executing corporate partnerships with Fortune 500 companies such as Estee Lauder, and others that also support BC. The head of the African Women’s Business Network bought the foreign rights to the book, as well as a publishing company in Portugal, and I was invited to speak in Lagos, Nigeria. I was also hired as a personal marketing for Outskirts Press, and have attracted several publicity coaching clients, which has resulted in more than quadrupling my former income as a jazz pianist.

The moral? You CAN re-invent yourself! The only two things you need to become successful in any endeavor is to have a passion for your topic, and a sincere desire to help people. The rest will fall into place.

Find me at: http://www.theDILRules.com