In Five Years!

Day dreaming is fun and can brighten up your day. You can be who you want to be and achieve your goals in your daydream. Five years from now I see myself getting on the New York Times Best Sellers list for the first time with about 15K to 20K books sold. This will put me probably in the mid-90s on the list. Since I am dreaming let’s say #95. I know at this spot on the list I am in a very precarious place. I can be off the list by the next week. However, I still dance around my home like a mad woman. Laughing and giggling out loud with a lot of joy in my heart. I know my next royalty payment will be the largest ever. I can get the local and maybe even regional newspapers to write about me if I move quickly. A week is not a lot of time. The best part I can say I am a bestselling author forever even if I am only on the list for just one week.

To sell at least 15K books I have had to work extremely hard and make many sacrifices. I have been through several storms and the fight to keep my spirit up has been at times a herculean feat. Now at least for six days I am reveling in the victory and truly enjoying my place in the literary world. Some of my patrons this is what I call my supporters because the word fan terrifies me. When the word fan is mentioned, I see a hoard of people rushing me in public and this I feel is so unnatural. Sure, every artist wants people to adore them and of course buy their books, pay for movie or concert tickets or buy their paintings, sculptures and the like. I draw the line at people worship. This is not for me. It is for Allah (God) and Allah only people do not deserve to be worshiped.

Now after the one-person celebration is over the reality sets in. I need to do this again and fast. As I grind out a press release and set it up with the press release distribution service, I contact my online marketing pro who has been with me for three years. He begins to work his magic placing my name and the fact that I am a NYC Times bestselling author all over the place in the digital world. As he is working, I contact one of my dear friend’s daughter who is a Mass Communications major in college. I have known her since she was hanging out in her mom’s belly. She comes over jumps for joy and cheers then shows me how she can get me on local and regional TV more as well as on Sirius radio.

This day has been exhausting and I have not left the house yet. We decide to do a Zoom event that features me being interviewed by her. She writes a fantastic press release for the event and gets it out immediately to the public. Then she begins to work the phones. She works her contacts (many from events she has worked as the PR person) and finds a way to get 25 people to agree to attend and invite two others to join them at least for the first 15 minutes of the Zoom event. This is when we really pull out the stops. Our best content is within the first 15 minutes of the one-hour event. We rehearse it twice and then schedule it to go live the following day. During the event we stress where and how people can purchase the book of course reminding them that now I am a bestselling author.

As I collapse on my couch at the end of the hectic day I pray that all the work is worth it and that we have gotten enough attention to get another 15K or more sales by the deadline of Thursday at 5 pm. I thank Allah for this blessing and answering many, many prayers. Of course we are working all other leads to see how I can stay on the NYC Times bestsellers list for at least another week. Then we check to see how I am doing on Amazon and notice that I have made it to the top 100 bestselling books on Amazon.com as well. We both sing, dance and cheer. This is going to help a lot to get book sales for the following week and beyond. I can honestly say I made it to the 100 bestsellers list on Amazon and the NYC Times all in the same week. Go team!

I did it with a lot of help from others along the way! So many friends purchased my early works and encouraged others they knew to do the same. Now that I have accomplished this goal it is time to prepare for the next level. Writing for TV and movies will take a lot of education, work, time and practice.

Day dreams are such wonderful mood boosters and planning excursions. You see what you want to do right in front of you. All you need to do now is follow the plan and put in the work. Like mountain climbing you get there one step at a time and never look down always up!