A Dream Come True !!!

Last week I realized a big dream. I became a best selling author!   Me. Joanne Tombrakos. My 3-Day Free Kindle promotion had taken my book, It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide to Creating the Time for Your Life, to the #1 position for best selling free Kindle books in the Time Management category. For three days only. Just like the sale.

It was a heady, free-floating few days spent glued to my computer, watching my Twitter feed, sharing Facebook and LinkedIn posts while emailing for help and assistance far and wide. For seventy-two hours I got to feel the experience of what it means to say I am a best selling author, that dream that every writer who has ever thought about writing dreams.

I became addicted to my Amazon reports, tracking the number of downloads by hour. Even more so, to my ranking.  By mid-day of Day 1, my book moved into the #1 spot  in the time management category and stayed there for the duration. It went to #2 in Business/Life and as high as #5 in overall Business. I'm not sure what to compare this to, but 1584 downloads in three days was something that I was pretty proud of. Especially considering how I had struggled with the possibility that no one would download it, even if I gave it away for free.

I made myself a best selling author by  pushing out of my comfort zone. I agonized over this “free” thing for a long time. In the world that I come from of radio and television advertising sales, free is only given when attached to cold, hard cash. And while I never wrote the book just to make money, I am a for-profit entity. I had read all about how free promotions could be of benefit, but I had resisted.

I did it anyway. I jumped, knowing the worst thing that might happen was I would fail.

I’m not sure just yet what this all means in the long term for the sales of my book. I'll be back to you on that.  But right now, this is what I know for sure:

• My book is in the hands of 1584 people who did not have it before.
• The Internet is an extremely powerful tool, that if used properly can make a big difference in a short period of time, even if you are an entrepreneur working out of your house.
• Every step of your journey thus far can help you moving forward. I applied my sales background and advertising expertise to the new tools of social media.
• People are basically good and so very generous in helping and sharing , if you just stretch enough to ask.
• People are kind, and will take the time, unsolicited to drop you an email and tell you they read the book  and loved the message and then spread it among  their tribes.
• We live in a global world. Because of this promotion my book now has its first 5-star Review on Amazon UK!!  
• Networking today happens on-line and off-line. I picked up a lot of new followers on my social nets  and made many new connections over the course of three days.
• On-line connections can meet off-line. On the last day of the promotion I attended the S.H.E. Summit at 82 Mercer. A woman waved at me with a big smile as if we were long lost friends as she announced,  “I know you! I just read your book!”
• Dreams can come true, not necessarily exactly as you imagined, but true nevertheless if you are just willing to leap out of your comfort zone and experiment.

I made myself a best selling author. I didn’t wait. I figured out a way to do it. For three days. 

What will you do today that takes you out of your comfort zone?

What dream are you willing to make come true?

I Had A Dream

I had a dream that one day I would no longer work for someone else. In that dream I imagined being more generous and benevolent to myself when it came to things like taking days off. I imagined that I would be able to shut off my work brain in much the same manner I had learned to do when I had my corporate job, letting it rest just long enough to refresh itself before the wheels started turning again.

Turns out that part of my dream isn't so true. The wheels never stop, government holiday or not.

They don't necessarily take a break on the weekends either. In fact, it is not that rare an event where I get my best work done on a Sunday. This is not to say I now work 24/7. I don't.  But I will own up to the fact that it is often a Tuesday or Thursday when I get the least amount of work done. It's just what happens when you work independently.

Some days you are up before the sun and others find yourself in your pajamas at noon. Some days you are planning and in my case always writing....sometimes at 11PM, and others you are hard pressed to check two things off your to-do list.  Somedays it is back to life before you left the corporate world like tomorrow, when I have a networking lunch that will involve wearing stockings and heels. It's just what happens when you are your own boss. It's something you learn to relax into but always struggle with. Especially if like me you spent A LOT of years working for "the man."

I had plans to be generous to me and to sleep in today. Mostly because for some reason that I will not even try to explain, I was up before the sun on Saturday and Sunday and consequently had a very productive weekend. But the jackhammers on the construction site next door to my building had other ideas. They started working at 7AM as they have been for months. Apparently, whatever union they work for doesn't know that Martin Luther King's Birthday is now a federal holiday. Or perhaps they are just happy to be getting time and a half.

I have learned that the dream as Martin Luther King so eloquently demonstrated is the vision. What manifests doesn't always necessarily look exactly as the picture you had in mind, and that is okay. It's a first step. The key is to keep dreaming and to keep dreaming big.

As for me, I have decided to work until Noon today and then play this afternoon, or what I like to think of  as the best of both worlds.