Lots of people say that beginnings are always hard. Changes of all kinds, even for the better, are always listed high up on the list of things that cause people stress.

Me? I’m a change junky. Always have been. It’s been toned down over the years between raising children and owning a viable business for a decade or two but the buzz has been increasing over the past few years.

Every single day I start my day giving thanks for hundreds of blessings  – potable water in the pipes in my house, my house itself with its beautiful backyard and shady back porch where I eat breakfast every morning, my husband of 45 years who makes that breakfast, the amazing fruit he cuts up for us, the coffee he brews, and the money to buy it all, our healthy children and grandchildren, my supportive, fun friends and my (more or less) healthy body.

Lots of people say how much they love their lives and I hope they mean it as much as I do.

And then there’s that buzz, that itchiness to get moving – the voice of the change junky in me.

In less than three months my husband and I will be headed off for big changes. Six months in India. Different scenery, different languages, different food. Building new routines and then moving on to create yet other routines in other places when the spirit moves us.

But three months when I’m ready right now is a while.

What to do? What to do?    

One of the answers I’ve found is finally hiring someone to help me market my first two books. I loved writing them and relished actually holding the paperback in my hands and seeing each of them on my shelf. Marketing? I found I didn’t really have much of a passion for getting other people to read them.

I’ve been finishing up things in my present life to get ready for my new life in India. I’ve been de-cluttering my house and putting together a schedule for my studio for while I’m gone. I find that part of this temporary closure is a rising desire to have strangers buy my books. I wasn’t even aware of it being a circle that needed completion.     

An organized, pleasant man from Germany is partnering with me to call my first two books to the attention of their potential readers. Working with someone in this field and getting acquainted with the logistics and technology of marketing is just the tweak my brain needs at the moment. It’s a world unto itself made up of puzzle pieces that fit together nicely when arranged properly.

He has many ideas that are tested and proven. I have ideas that are a bit out of the box for him as an expert in his field and a true example of the beauty of beginner’s mind.

There’s a rule out there that says that artists are intrinsically unskilled at selling their art; that the two talents are mutually exclusive.

I’m guessing there are thousands upon thousands of excellent, fascinating books out there that go unread and unknown because their authors throw their hands up before even trying to sell them.

I don’t know if this marketing experience will lead to thousands of people reading my books, but I know that they won’t read them if they don’t know they exist. It seems that in this day and age they won’t know they exist if the books aren’t search engine optimized and connected to a similarly optimized author’s page. They need the boost that reviews give and being sold to libraries all over North America.

Alas, none of that happens by itself.

For some people, the blank page is the monster lurking under the bed. For other people, it’s brand awareness. I’m here to tell all you writers out there –

It isn’t as scary as it sounds.