Patience is Hard When You're Waiting...

At our last visit, the CNN crew had just left us and flown off to their next assignment - something about politics in Las Vegas. So now came the waiting. There are so many things to do when you are waiting for something important to air, so many questions. How can I maximize this great exposure for my book, Laid Off? Don't Stress! How to Get from Mad to Glad? If there is a surge in book sales, will I have enough books on hand? Should I order the 2nd edition now? Do I want to change the name of the book to be more inclusive? Do I want to add more chapters and more stories into this 2nd edition? What happens if it airs on CNN while my husband and I are fishing in the East Cape? Should I get a press release ready to send out as soon as it airs? Should I talk to Barnes and Noble and Changing Hands and Borders and...and...and...so many questions. Where do I find out about these things? Who do I ask?

The first thing I did was send out an e-mail asking friends of mine in the National Speakers Association and my toastmasters club, Gilbert 499, and the Arizona Book Publisher's Association to get advice. They were great! Everyone was so helpful and supportive. I highly recommend belonging to associations like these that fit with your own profession - it saves re-inventing the wheel.

One of the things I did right away is add a forward to my book by a very giving guy, Greg Reid, the Millionaire Mentor. Greg and I met in California when we were at an event from my first book I had a chapter in, Seizing Your Success from the Live the Life You Love series. We got to talking and since he liked my concept of showing successful transitions, he offered to write a forward. I so appreciated it, but my Laid Off book went to press before we got his back from the editor. Besides the 2nd edition would be even better than the first. After getting the story edited, I sent it off to the designer, 1106 Designs in Phoenix. OK, that's all set to go. Now what about books to sell in the mean time. My sister, Bev, agreed to come over and check my e-mails to send out books ordered. What would I ever do without her - my friend and faithful encourager.

Since I had asked Michael Cary from CNN to hold off as long as possible, he did, but in the mean time a well known journalist, Tim Russert, died so everything was on hold anyway. Russert's sudden death was a huge loss to the news community and to the world.

Michael did call and tell me he was grateful that I didn't hound him about the airing of the Laid Off piece. Finally on July 17th, Michael called me and said it was going to air on July 18th - a Friday morning. 7:30 a.m.

Friday morning, I got this call from a cousin in Phoenix who had heard from his mother in North Dakota who had heard from her daughter in North Dakota who heard from another cousin in South Dakota - they had all seen the CNN segment before I had. Just that alone was worth it - isn't the world small? It reminded me of the old telephone game we used to play as children. Another one of our fly fishing buddies had been awake during the night and had seen Gerry and I on CNN and didn't know anything about the piece and called others in the Desert Fly Casters club. To say the least, many people had stumbled upon it and the e-mails started coming.

Yes, publicity like this does sell books. But I was going to ensure more publicity, I sent out 40 press releases to state and local radio and TV stations. The piece was even picked up by channels 5 and 10 in the Phoenix area. I'm still working on maximizing the event - but there are alot of things you can do to move the event into a more financially lucrative event. I've been on talk shows and have received several calls from people who heard the segment and wanted to know how I made it successfully through the lay offs. I'll tell you more about that in the next issue. I can hardly wait - I've just discovered another way to take my business to a whole new level. Stay tuned...,

Kitty Wiemelt, Here's to Finding Your Passion and Living Your Life on Purpose with Gladness.

Comments

[Wendy Kenney]

Hi Kitty!

Congrats on your success!