Amazon Bestseller Launch Report Complete- Let the Guest Bloggers Begin!

Sandy Nathan, award winning author of Numenon

I want to let everyone know that “Your Shelf Life: How Long Will You Last?” has gotten almost 21,000 requests for pages in its few months of existence. Many thanks to my readers!

The full, 8-part report on my Amazon Bestseller Day is up. This is essentially an e book about how to plan and execute your bestseller day––and a cautionary heads up. It’s got links to resources throughout and my hard won insights. The best way to read it is sequentially, reading from part 1 to 8. The menu to the right under Categories  will guide you.

I’m excited about the direction the blog is taking. As you writers and authors know, themes get clearer and more focused as we develop topics.  “Sanity and success” is emerging at the theme of Your Shelf Life. How can we fulfill our dreams as writers AND stay sane?

In addition to putting up my own posts, I’m lining up some expert guest bloggers.  Irene Watson of ReaderViews will be a regular guest. Her first post is up, a very important look at personality type as it applies to our readership. I look forward to working with Irene; she’s a real pro who knows LOTS about success in the book world.

Julie Ann Wambach, PhD, is preparing a guest blog article. Dr. Wambach is a clinical psychologist and author of Battles between Somebodies and Nobodies: Combat Abuse of Rank at Work and at Home. This is a really important book, one that I reviewed and am going to study for many years. (If you’d like to read more about the book, you can see my review here. Positive votes cheerfully accepted.)

Why am I so excited about Dr. Wambach’s book as it applies to writers? It’s because of its systems approach and new insight on human hierarchies. This has direct application to the social world in which we writers exist. Julie talks about the hierarchies we live in: at home, in our families, and in social situations. She carefully describes abuse of rank––belittling or hazing. Behaviors that make one person feel big and another feel small. These can escalate.

When I was in graduate school in counseling, we were taught the family systems theory. In earlier types of psychotherapy, the individual patient was stressed. The patient’s social and familial setting  was pretty much ignored. Back in the 1960s and 70s, Virginia Satir and a few other path breaking therapists noticed that they’d get the “patient” in a family functioning again, only to find someone else began to show psychological symptoms.

After lots of observation, these therapists realized that that the structure of the families involved required one “crazy” individual at all times. The family system was diseased. The person with the symptoms rotated to perpetuate the systemic disease. The therapists began to treat the family as a whole, and everyone began to get better.

Writer after receiving rejection letter. Does the system support you as a human being?

What does this have to do with writers and authors? I’ve been in the writing for publication game for a long time. When I experienced the seeming stone wall facing new writers, I thought, “Ahah! Look at the SYSTEM YOU’RE IN. Can you win here?”

The systems inherent in the traditional publishing industry and the newer world of small presses and author owned publishers bear examination.

I’ll do that here.

I’m lining up an array of other guest bloggers, from a corporate attorney to experts in on-line addiction and personal finances. I’ll announce their articles, or you can link to yourshelflife.com or sign up for my newsletter to receive news.

Sandy Nathan & Shakti. Our first ride since I had my ankle fused. Terrific!