Summer and Taking Turns

The end of the school year is mocking me. I can hear summer coming, whistling and skipping closer to me while I shrink back into the shadows, covering my ears and pretending the days of “I’m bored” and endless interruption aren’t at hand.

As a mom, summer is a blessing. No more early morning ritual! Sleeping in (for them) and fewer chauffeur hours rocks. The downside is that as a work-at-home mom with a full-time workload (and getting bigger), I don’t get the quiet that I do when it’s just me and my dogs. 8:30 to 2:20 now becomes just numbers on the clock. Anxiety kicks in about this time because I get so accustomed to my daily grind that the slower pace and humanergy makes it harder for me to focus and get sh** done. Because that’s what it all boils down to.

Then again, I LOVE MY KIDS. GOD, THEY ARE GROWING UP FAST. I MUST TREASURE EVERY MOMENT!

Am I venting? A little, but there is a solution; one that was brought on when I realized it was a fantasy to get everyone together to do “family stuff.” It’s a concept we’ve been familiar with since childhood: taking turns.

Yes, I’m talking PATIENCE and waiting a bit. I’m also referring to taking turns with my loved ones. Besides going for sno cones, there isn’t much my kids (15 down to 8) agree on. I can sometimes get both boys to ride bikes with me. I can get my 13-year-old girl to go shopping or for pedis or a dance-related event. My hubby is always up for date night. My girlfriends go for wine and great conversation. My sisters crave sister time and so do I.  I NO LONGER WAIT FOR A PERFECT TIME TO DO ANYTHING.

If there was, guess what? I’d still be waiting.

Instead, I SAY YES to one-on-one activities that mean something to my kids, my friends, my husband, my sisters. The gallery below is a sample from the last week. It was a busy, wonderful, soul-filled week. I also worked my butt off for my clients and my authors. I took turns. And as summer approaches, I have to remember to keep doing that – taking turns with the summer camps and dance classes and book signings and writing and design and branding AND some R&R. For me, work/life balance isn’t a balancing act at all, but about taking turns and trying to be fully present in whatever you’re doing and whomever you’re doing it with.

What about you? What are your plans this summer? Are you good at taking turns in your life? How do you do it?

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On the book front, I’ll be sharing the covers for TWIN FALLS, my YA paranormal written under my pen name Lena Brown and my fifth women’s fiction novel, FAMILY CHARMS, in the next blog post so subscribe if you haven’t. If you’d like to be an early reader of EITHER book (summer releases), comment or message me on Facebook. xoM

EVENT ALERT: I’ll be signing books at Embassy Suites Norman Saturday from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. so come see me! I’ll have Something Wicked, Sleigh Ride, The Stork Reality, Something New and Dance Mom Survival Guide with me!

Kicking off the Sleigh Read Tour

It’s an honor to be the first driver in the Sleigh Read tour. My sleigh is shiny red, so glossy you can see winding down the road a mile away, led by beautiful Clydesdale horses featured in my Sleigh Ride: A Winter Anthology story, “Snowflakes and Stones.”

I’ve borrowed the hand-made purple scarf featured in my upcoming short story, “Pockets of Hope,” which will be released in an anthology of loss and living on, Hope Floats, in late December.

Of course I have a mug of Ghirardelli hot chocolate sitting beside me.

And in the back? The sleigh is full of great reads. Here’s a sampling of them.  So if you’ve been wanting to read one of my books, this is a great opportunity to buy one and get one free. My books included in the special are: Something New, Fixer Upper, The Stork Reality, Life’s a Beach and The Last Resort. Links to the books can be found on my Amazon Author Central page as well as on my books page on this site. Details on the promotion can be found here.

The holidays in the Lott household consist of Christmas movies, baking cookies, decorating the tree together (got a white one last year), and Scrabble by the fire.

I hope this holiday season brings you joy and love. The greatest gift is being in the present moment.

What are your holiday traditions?  Leave a comment for a chance to win a Sleigh Read ebook of your choice.

xo,

Malena

The Swinging Vine Brand Theory

With five back-to-back and two simultaneous releases at Buzz Books this fall and a busy caseload on the branding front, I’ve been thinking about Discoverability and Action. You can’t have one without the other, but what surprises companies and authors the most is just how MUCH action is takes to get traction. I got an email from an author yesterday sharing how disappointed she was in not getting return emails from people she’s pitching and reaching out to. I assured her it’s totally normal. Emails fall into a similar camp as direct mail. Yes, the intended target may “see” your name, but that doesn’t mean they’ll open it. Open rates in email marketing can be abysmal, even if the content goes by the rule of thumb to ask an engaging question or use the “top 5″ list method. If you’re at 30% open rate, consider yourself blessed. If they actually click on the links within the email, kiss your own hand. It’s tough to get and maintain people’s attention.

Each week I do a social media report for one of my clients (and I should do one for myself, but it’s the Cobbler’s Shoes thing), and I see the spreadsheet not as rows and columns but as Swinging Vines. Your brand is the monkey in the tree. Let’s say your products are bananas on that tree, but all the other monkeys have bananas on their trees, too, so you have some stiff competition. And maybe you’re at a disadvantage because your tree isn’t next to the beach like some of the other trees. How do you ensure your message gets out there?

MORE SWINGING VINES.

Swinging vines are all the ways you are connecting with your audience. And the way that you communicate with them will vary based on the delivery and purpose of the channel. You’ll be funny with quips. You’ll be serious with statistics. You’ll be friendly with responses. You’ll be kind with RTs and Shares. But if you’re doing all those on one channel, you could be missing a bunch of monkeys who aren’t fond of that vine.

This is the tale of Reach and Frequency, certainly – you want your vines to reach the most people you can with a frequency that they will see your messages multiple times – but so many vines just hang there. A hanging vine is not communicating anything or spreading buzz about your brand. And if a vine swings at you but you don’t send it back, you’ve lost that opportunity. That’s the engagement piece of swinging vine theory.

As I’ve posted previously, you don’t want to be a cranky monkey and you want to be seen as an expert in your field, but most of all you have to be an active monkey. Even though you’ve petered out of talking about your brand – and engaging others – by Friday, that’s the day social media is on fire. And just when you feel you’ve spent your last dollar on advertising, that’s just when you’ve gotten the monkeys’ attention so you can’t stop now. You have to keep telling them, switching up your story enough to make it interesting and new and forging on with more swinging vines.

Here are the Swinging Vines I use for my business clients:

• print ads
• web ads
• TV ads
• Radio ads
• Monthly e-newsletter
• brochures
• events
• Facebook
• Twitter
• tumblr blog
• WordPress blog
• Pinterest
• Letters and postcard direct mail
• PR (preferably setting up lunches and live pitches)

And what about for the author monkeys out there? At Buzz Books, we rely heavily on social media because we have a small budget, but we do invest in Facebook ad campaigns (you’re only charged when they click), galley promotions (printing and mailing books to reviewers) and event marketing (posters, PR and the event costs itself) and web ads.  We do bookmarks with the newest title releases to send to reviewers, take to events and give to our authors to pass out. It’s useful. It’s shiny. Here’s the latest one.

But even though there aren’t as many Swinging Vines for the author, the hope is that the publisher does some, the author does some and then the readers take that vine and swing it out to their audience, too. Getting shares, mentions, interactions – it all contributes to the total reach and effectiveness of your efforts, whether it was time or money that you invested. Additional Swinging Vines for authors could include:

• writing organizations (you can find online and in real life in nearly every city and every genre)
• participating in group blogs in addition to managing your own
• guest blogging
• actively commenting and networking on forums and writer blogs (I like Writing on the Ether and Writer Unboxed)

So what are you swinging (not slinging) for your brand?

HOT THIS WEEK

Castle & Quill Novel Prep Academy is just a month away (in OKC). I’m nervous and excited. Thrilled YA author Tara Hudson will be joining us along with debut crime novelist Lucie Smoker and our own comedian Heather Davis, whose travel essays debuted this week (TMI Mom Bites the Big Apple). We’re giving away a Kindle at C&Q, too so if you know any writers in OK/TX/KS, send them our way. We’re going to prep the hell out of that novel.

Also nervous/pumped about the release of Something Wicked. Big contest happening starting Monday and a trick or treat blog tour. f you like Halloween, you’ll want to check it out. And the stories are age appropriate for 11+ but you may certainly read it first and then share with your kiddos if you have them.

If YOU have a blog, I’d love to be a guest in November as I increase my Swinging Vines for the launch of Something New. 

 

 

 

Spark and Hustle

Welcome to my new weekly blog on creativity, mojo and zen. Each week I’ll share sources of inspiration, whether it’s a photo, an event or online resource, to keep you motivated to pursue your dreams and feel peace in the present. When thinking about who I am and what I want to say, these were the three words that best showcase my mission. I hope you’ll consider signing up for the blog to come to your inbox and tell your friends about it. I’m kicking things off by recommending a cool tour for you business women and entrepreneurs, called “Tory Johnson’s Spark & Hustle.” I’m hoping I can make her 6/25 day conference in Tulsa.

About the Spark and Hustle Tour

“Women attend our events for two main reasons: content and connections.

• Learn fresh ways to build your business and boost your bottom line
• Meet prospective clients, customers, collaborators and champions

That’s the Spark & Hustle advantage—come join us.

Come join us and let’s make it happen together!”

Source: sparkandhustle.com

Find our more here.

go-do-be-do,

Malena

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Story buzz: Enter The Last Resort BIG Beach Read contest in June!