The What If Syndrome

The "What if" syndrome...

A short time ago, we discussed Bob Bly's The 25 Secrets of Meaningful Success on his blog. His list is excellent and made me think of what I call the "what if" syndrome. It's the process by which we avoid success because of what could happen...the negative "what ifs".

• What if I fail in this?
• What if I screw up the advertising and make our money situation worse?
• What if the market just doesn't respond?
• What if I find out my book sucks?
• What if I lose my job and can't continue this route?
• What if they say no and don't hire me?
• What if my copy flops?
• What if my computer blows?
• What if my story falls flat and bores my readers?
• What if my ongoing illness keeps me from succeeding?
• What if the economy makes my market go bust?
• What if I fail? (always comes back to that, doesn't it?)

These are the negative "what ifs". The thoughts you should NOT be focusing on if you want to succeed in life. In no matter what you do. There are many, many more negative "what ifs" for your personal situation.

When these negative "what ifs" crop up, don't try to completely ignore them. They're an unwanted visitor that comes back time and time again, often refusing to ever leave.

MOLD them into positive "What ifs".

Why would you fail? What would cause you to fail in whatever you're doing? List the specifics of what would contribute to your failure in any given venture.

Let's say you're writing a fiction novel to send out to agents. Things that can make you fail are:

• What if you don't finish the manuscript.
• What if you run out of ideas.
• What if your plot runs out.
• What if your characters are lifeless blobs on the page.
• What if your grammar sucks.
• What if you finish it and then stick in a drawer to forget about it.

Look at those "what ifs" and learn how to avoid them.

• Form a daily writing routine and set goals for your novel.
• Learn how to plan your novel out by studying successful writers.
• Get a few books on plot development and study them.
• Get a few books on character development and study them.
• Study up on grammar and punctuation. Get The Elements of Style and keep it handy while you write.
• Study how to find agents and make a list of which ones accept your type of novels. Make a goal of querying them when your book is finished.

Find a writer in your niche that you admire. Someone who is making a living writing what you want to write. Study that person. Study the writer to the point that you absorb everything you can find on how they are so successful. What is their daily work routine like? What writing techniques do they reveal in books and interviews about their work? Visualize becoming a writer just like that person, and focus on the positive "what ifs."

• What if you do finish the manuscript?
• What if you have solid, exciting ideas throughout your story?
• What if your plot rocks?
• What if your characters are so full that it's difficult for the reader to remember these are fictional characters?
• What if your grammar is great and the words flow smoothly throughout the book?
• What if you finish it and find an agent who finds a publisher and demands more from you?

Imagine these positive "what ifs" coming true and visualize what your life will be like. Breathe into your visualization all those things you want to enjoy from your novel writing career. Don't concentrate on the money. The income is a means to an end. You need to concentrate on that end, and imagine being there. Concentrate on the satisfaction, the fulfillment of meeting your goals. Concentrate on the freedom you'll enjoy from the things you don't like in your life right now.

Use the above technique to cure the What If Syndrome. Use it to help you properly understand the goals you seek in your life and career. Use it to help you retain the positive attitude that will help increase your chances of obtaining those goals.

Negative thinking will cause you to hesitate and you risk going nowhere. Only with positive thinking can you be assured of a true step forward.

Straddling two sides of publishing...

I was brought into the world of writing through the traditional fiction side first. Then, six years later, I learned about the world of information writing. The online info product world. The two sides just do not agree with one another, and they do not mesh well together either.

I have two groups of friends. One group who believes you're not published unless it's with a traditional publisher. The other group of internet marketers who believes you can create a product and sell it yourself without a publisher. Essentially, self-publishing.

Unfortunately, the two groups do not agree on what's fair publishing practice when it comes to e-books. And I totally understand. Even knowing what I know now, it's difficult for me to think of charging $50 for an e-book that would have sold for $30 in print by a traditional publisher.

There are a few things that dictate what we charge in information marketing...

• The information: the niche and what value the information has to the buyer.
• The buying response: what price the market responds to.

The value is up to us as the authors and self-publishers. It's our responsibility to make sure the value is a benefit to the buyer - that the buyer gets more out of our product than he or she paid for it. I try to follow Yanik Silver's rule that we should make sure our product will give the buyer a 10, 100 or even 1000 times more return than what the buyer invested in it.

One thing I learned is that we do not have control over the buying response. For a long time, I rebelled against this. I insisted that we must sell our products for less, that to do so was the only responsible thing to do. But my training in internet marketing taught me differently.

You may believe you should sell the 50 page e-book for $10, but you need to understand the market you're selling that e-book to before you offer it at such a low price. In many markets, people just will not buy the product unless you charge $30-50. I know, I still have a hard time grasping this.

We do not control this. The market does. Or, should we say the ones who put out inferior $10 products do. They are the ones who taught the market that you get what you pay for. So, if you charge a lower price, they feel they are getting a lower quality product.

There is a way around this - and we responsible internet marketers have become creative in making sure we give our customers what they deserve. We have the power to tack on bonuses that boosts the value to the buyer, often we'll include a free month's membership to a site with it.

For instance, I offered at one time a 40 page e-book for $20. And I threw in four more extra e-books that helped the buyer with the topic. Now, I felt cheap still. Because four bonuses is low in the group I follow. Tacking on up to ten more bonuses would have been better. But I also rebelled and charged less for the e-book.

It did okay. It didn't do good or great for me because I didn't market it well. That was my fault - not the product. But I saw enough to know that the market would respond to it.

A few people in the traditional publishing group are complaining about an individual who put together a weight-loss e-book. This e-book sells for around $30 at the 60-page mark, with three bonuses.

I'm for and against this complaint.

As an internet marketer who understands how the marketing works on the web, I disagree. I feel there's a lot of bad feelings here because they do not understand what market this e-book is intended for. She could easily charge $10 for that e-book. But if she was to market it to venues like where I do, she'd never sell it. For the reasons stated above, it just doesn't work that way. People in the traditional publishing group just are not exposed to the ins and outs of internet information marketing, where this product belongs, and cannot understand this.

One misunderstanding is how she's telling people to do more of her type of marketing and they'll do better. Because her first week's sale was only one copy. On the internet, your sales may start off slow, or even dead, until you implement the marketing techniques. Then it builds up. This could happen quickly, overa period of days, or more slowly, over the span of a few years. It all depends on how much you know about qualifying and driving your traffic to your sales page.

The complaints also state that she's spent $7,000 in marketing. You can easily do that. Perhaps it's because her market is hot right now and her PPC expense is high. You have to pay a lot per click to get the top spot during the hot seasons. (I googled various words and didn't see an ad for her.) Either she's had massive traffic driven to her site by that investment and has made major money, or she didn't know what she was doing and wasted that amount - I haven't seen a gross income amount from her efforts.

My marketing budget in my fantasy realm where money is not an object for any one product will not come anywhere near that amount. Not even with PPC ads. Don't get me wrong, you CAN spend that much and come out very well. But the fact that she did, and then showed up personally marketing her book at a bookstore, left me with a "huh?" reaction.

Which leads to my approval of this complaint. Online information product marketing belongs online. Traditional publishing (and the physical self-publishing) belongs in the bookstores and the online bookstores. The two areas target two different buying types. They just do not mesh well. They live by different rules.

A traditional publisher is not going to be able to sell the e-book version of the book for a higher price. The information marketer is not going to be able to sell their info product for a lower price. It'll be interesting to see how this changes over the course of ten years, but for right now, this is just how it is.

I feel that an information marketer who is selling their e-book for the higher price to the appropriately targeted markets online, should stay in his or her place. They do not have the right to march into a bookstore and tell traditional writers how to do their business.

Likewise, I also feel that traditional writers should learn the facts fully before judging someone else. To be fair, this group feels that they know the facts. They don't realize there's another publishing world out there that's fully functional and well-loved. It surprised me to find out about it!

I'm still caught in the middle. I love both groups. I'm a member of both. I love writing the information products and the information product marketing. I love writing the traditional writing - fiction and non-fiction - and the prospect of gaining a presence there.

And the traditional side of me still rebels. Something I should sell for $30, I sell for $20. I give my affiliates at least 50%. I tack on bonuses and memberships to up the value. I study different business models, and combine them to create one that works for my target market and allows me to provide more for less.

Does it work? Not enough in yet to make that call. But I'm always thinking of new ways to do things, new offers to make. In time, I hope to have something that combines my two publishing sides together.

Stretching it...

Did you have one of those mothers who said, "You're taking too much upon yourself and should slow down," ? I didn't, but I knew mothers who did. My former pastor did warn me, "Be careful that you don't overextend yourself in service to the Lord," when I first met him. I had three jobs and a few outside projects. I was, and still am, a workaholic.

A complicated one, at that. I'm still extremely lazy and prone to procrastination. I take on more jobs than I should - most are ones that I self-appoint, for my own ventures. But I make my set deadlines. Usually earlier than I set them for.

The latest family upset showed me how I really was stretching myself too thin since I started freelancing full time a little over a year ago. I wanted to learn everything, do everything, and help others behind me with everything. Never say no, never pass up an opportunity to use my talent here and there.

I've done a lot. I've learned a lot. I love what I'm doing. But when I had to start saying no and pushing many of my ventures back during the family upset, I realized how much I am creating stress for myself and the ones around me by doing too much.

So, I'm slowing down on many things. This falls in line with what my last post said, and will help me reach the three main goals.

Magazine growth is stalled for awhile. Will approach that again over the summertime. Also, magazine work is pushed back until summer time. I rarely am even checking the emails for it. I've posted on the blog and Twitter and FaceBook about this, so people should know. I will get in there once a month for maintenance and updates. This month, I do need to post the guidelines for the summer contests and issue.

I'm doing my own copywriting, and just a few jobs via word of mouth. Unless I need to switch gears to get income in, I won't be marketing myself in that way now. (IF time allows, maybe some catalog writing, since I am quick with it.)

I am going to continue exchanging with the few copywriting buddies I've connected with.

In the copywriting and marketing field, I still have an urge to become a coach. I am exploring courses/mentors in this for later in the year.

My main focus for the next three months is the 12 week membership for digitalchurchsecretary.com. It's not active yet. I am setting up the program, url, member site, and converting the current site and blog over to reflect it.

This is a project that's close to my heart. It's important to me. And it's a strong experience for me. Perhaps a tough first experience. The church market is not used to buying this way yet, and I have to teach them.

I'm a member of Frank Kern's Infomillionaire site, I've taken numerous courses on how to put together these types of information products, and the guides for this site draw upon my own experiences of working for churches of different denominations. I can help others help their churches grow, and that's where my talent needs to be used right now. Too many churches are struggling and shutting their doors.

It's time I concentrated my efforts where God needs me, and where my family needs me.

First week in midst of disruptions...

This week is the first week of the year. The first week of actually setting my daily schedule in place, and achieving my goals.

So, what are the goals for this year?

• To create the solid daily schedule I preach to others and stick with it.
• To successfully bring out the four projects I have planned for the year.
• To create a sustainable income for my family with the writing business.

The solid daily schedule is coming around slowly. Eliminating the disruptions and getting my energy up is difficult. I'm still going through a particularly stressful time, and dealing with a domestic family disruption at home. It'll be a few months before all is said and done, so I'm going easy on myself.

First, I'm working on my energy level and motivation. Following my own advice and those teaching how to do this. Before I start my day, I exercise, eat a good breakfast, shower, and make sure the house is tidied up. Then I dive in to the work. This part isn't going too badly.

Next, I'm attempting to work in 2-4 hour blocks of time on one aspect. Normally, this is exceptionally easy for me, but doing it now is stretching it. That is due to those disruptions that will not end for a month or two. Still, I'm managing 1 to 1 1/2 hours at a time. Not too bad.

I've started a new mentoring program that will help me with the four projects of the year. I expect great things. The first is not happening today, as I hoped it would. I can't be mad about that. It's due to things out of my control at the moment. But I do plan on bringing it out soon.

The four projects are enough to create a sustainable income. I've studied well on how to promote myself, help others, copywrite for other businesses, and how to grow a sustainable business that will grow and prosper. Sustainable is the key I went for in building my online business. I did not want to get into the trap of having a product launch that booms for ten minutes, bringing in lots of dough, and then falls flat. This would mean scrambling to create another product to do the same process all over again.

In addition, I learned how to make the brick and mortar stores sustainable. Both from experience of running businesses and offices, to learning from marketing masters. This is a benefit I will pass on to my clients.