Everything Changes

This week I've had two completely unrelated "ah-ha" moments.

First there was a weekend reunion trip back to the old Alma Mater. It's been over a decade since I set sights on my college. I was simultaneously overwhelmed by the amount of things that had stayed completely the same and by those that were different.

Good old Phi Chapter

 My sorority house (which was celebrating 100 years on campus) was almost untouched at first sight. Same brick building, same bench out front. Even the same screen door with the holes in it. But then I looked closer. We have a wheelchair ramp now, and a big flat screen in the living room. The biggest change was the lack of a phone line. They took the lines out of the rooms. I guess they just assume everyone has a cell phone now.

It was...strange.

Then there was this...

The Twenty Mile Stand in Cincinnati

The Twenty Mile Stand was built in 1804, only a few years after Ohio became a state. It got its name because it was roughly 20 miles from downtown Cincinnati and a perfect spot for a stage coach stop. It has been a tavern, post office, school house and a library. During my lifetime (I grew up just a mile or two down the street) it was a series of restaurants, each of them opening with great fanfare and fizzling out shortly after.

Over the past many years the building has deteriorated and became a liability. This picture was taken yesterday, as the building was being demolished.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because change happens. Sometimes it is welcome and long overdue (like a wheelchair ramp) and other times it is sad and disappointing (like losing a landmark). The thing is, we can't do anything to stop it.

There's an old saying, and I have no idea where it comes from. The basic idea is that the only constant thing is change. So if you aren't moving forward, you're moving backward, because standing still isn't an option.

It used to be a book tour set you apart and earned all the reader exposure an author could hope for. We can cry about the fact that a blog tour isn't as effective as it used to be, but we can't cling to it as the end all be all of book promotion. And I'm not just picking on book tours here. I'm talking about all the wonderful tricks and tips that were highly successful 10, 5, even 1 year ago, that don't pull as much weight today.

It's up to all of us to recognize that change (like Winter) is always coming. We can cling to what once was or might have been, or we can look forward to what is coming next. The challenge is to know what's coming so we can be on the early end of it.

To that point, I'm excited to announce a new series coming to the blog in May. For one month I'll be focusing entirely on ways to promote your book, with a new challenge or action item issued every day of the month. I'm hoping to put a new twist on some old ideas that have fallen out of favor and introduce a few new ideas to jump start your sales.

The month long challenge will be most beneficial to those with a recent release or one that is close, but anyone can participate. There will be prizes as well, but more on that later. For now, I just want to give you a heads up.

We can stick our heads in the sand about the changes in the publishing world, but it won't help us sell more books. Let's work together to embrace the change.