The Payoff

In and amongst all the effort, sometimes I'm told something in passing that truly makes my day. Hearing that someone purchased my book is always sure to make me smile, but equally so is hearing that my book has been heard of or recommended to someone I have bumped into.

A week or so ago I was sat in on a presentation on the spiritual aspects of pregnancy and child birth. I asked the speaker if she had written a book on the subject and another person jumped in and told her that I had written a book that she might enjoy reading. When the speaker saw the cover the first thing she said was, 'Oh a I've been hearing about this through my email, I've been recommended to purchase this book by a couple of my associates.' I'm not gonna front, inside I beamed with happiness. I haven't used email marketing as a way to promote my book, however I do have information about it in my signature, and I had absolutely no connection to this woman whatsoever. I was happy because people are talking about 'The Mouth of Babes' to the point of it being a topic amongst emails - Wow!

Even during my recent spell in hospital one of the in-patients came to speak to me and another patient mentioned to her that I am an author. I gave her my last card and as soon as she saw it she said,' I've heard about this book! Oh my god you're the author? I can't believe it!'

Sometimes it feels as if I'm putting in all this hard work - creating book trailers, hosting the radio show, writing blogs, promoting via social networking etc and I have no idea if there is any point to it all. Sales aren't exactly booming, although there is a steady growth I'm still happy grinning in appreciation of, but unless I'm at a speaking engagement where I can physically see my novel flying off the shelf in real time, I can't help but wonder sometimes. Six months after making my book available for purchase, I find myself randomly bumping into someone who has heard about my work, and it feels so good to know the hard grind is paying off. I'm far from being the next Octavia Butler, but I'm getting feedback at times when I least expect it. What can I say, it makes my day to know my efforts aren't in vain.