…if yeez ever doubt that our wunnerful Authors family is global…

…part of my day job as a corporate restructuring trouble-shooter (no, not trouble-maker, Mabel) involves travelling to wherever my clients require me to be on the planet… currently, my coins, wristwatch, belt buckle and other metallic ornamentation about my body are regularly testing the security detection systems at Abu Dhabi and Bahrain airports as I shuttle forth and back ‘twixt these two locales… being relatively new to Bahrain, it came as a great surprise and pleasure to find myself talking to a member of the Bahrain Writers Circle  http://www.bahrainwriterscircle.org early in my sojourn there, the LUVLY Claudia Hardt… next thing I knew, I was invited as Guest Speaker at their regular meeting… what an absolute joy for this ol’ Jurassic… the welcome was excellent… Rohini Sunderam and David Hollywood, who are dynamos at the core of the group, let me rabbit on about my pet subject, ‘the BUSINESS of writing’... I was allotted about half an hour to spout, but not surprisingly to most of yeez who know me, the session went on for close to an hour and half… fully engaged… what a terrific bunch of quill-scrapers… I felt so much at home, next time, I’m gonna take my slippers along with me… here’s the generous message sent out by Rohini after the event:

Dear All
On behalf of all of us I am extending a big Thank you to Seumas
Gallacher for speaking to us on November 10th and an equally big thank
you to Claudia Hardt for finding him!

Seumas,
Thank you for that wonderfully stimulating talk and for laying out the
‘business’ end of writing. As you could see the questions would have
continued to come thick and fast and I do believe we’d have gone on
for a week and still not had all aspects of our doubts and queries,
challenges and apprehensions addressed.

Certainly for me, the most encouraging aspect of your talk was that
you approached this as a beginner and made a success of it – through
diligence and dedication. So it gives me a great deal of comfort that
at least I know what a blog is!

For those who couldn’t make it here’s a rough outline of what Seumas
Gallacher told us were the steps to take in order to successfully
promote our writings!

And this, he says, is 90% of what makes a book successful.
Unfortunately, the writer inside me wants to curl up and die!
The steps:
–    Build your platform of contacts
–    YES! Get a blog/website to start ‘building you as a brand’ – but
don’t just plug away at your book. Find a way to engage with potential
readers
–    Let everyone you know hear about your book and ask them to pass the
message on
–    Twitter like a bird in spring looking for a mate (ok those aren’t
his words, they’re mine)
–    Find like-minded readers (Goodreads/Amazon/ other places in cyberspace)
–    Make a business plan – because marketing and promoting your
book/stories/poems is a business
–    Identify and chalk out a Business campaign
–    Develop a marketing campaign
–    Develop a promotional campaign
–    Budget – in terms of money & time
–    Be organised
–    Be disciplined

And if you need to know more. visit his website
http://seumasgallacher.com and get his book: SELF-PUBLISHING STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL SALES

UK: http://amzn.to/Qq2c3y

US: http://amzn.to/1lt6bcv

…thanks again, Rohini, David, Claudia and all the great gang who attended the other evening… as a certain Master Douglas MacArthur once said, ‘I shall return’…

…see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

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