Now, more than any other time, an author needs to use a different way of selling and promoting their books. Unless you’re a household name, that is. And I won’t name anyone in particular.

And so my website manager, Sarah Smith, who’s learning the art of promotion too, suggested writing about a particular book and sharing it as a means of letting potential readers know about them. Then share on social media. Today you get two in one. Both practical books with much encouragement.

Today I feature a book that I co-wrote with Donna Mann. It started with a discussion on the drive to a funeral of a fellow writer. Donna and I got to talking about our writing and our books. What else do authors do? 😉

Our focus changed a little along the way. Donna, to her family history research, and me, to writing memoir in creative nonfiction. It was Donna’s idea that we collaborate on a book. This would be a new venture for both of us, writing a how-to book, different than telling a story.

Group-authored book about grieving before, during and after the death of a loved one.

Donna and I had both worked in a group to produce Good Grief People, where we individually shared stories of grief experiences—husband, father, friend, sister, daughter, grandchild, son, cousin, and so on. That book is still meeting a need for folks who are deep in grief and sometimes on reflection too, later on, trying to understand that grief and changes it brought into their lives. Many stories include faith perspectives, and how their experiences touch on the omniscient.

In that book we were still employing storytelling techniques, at least on paper, rather than oral storytelling which is quite different

In this new book, Discover Your Story, that we launched in August 2020, we were teaching others about writing family stories and memoir, quite a different process. While we did provide examples to show what readers could do with pieces of memory, it was mainly instructional.

Our launch featured us each reading a short segment from our book and answering the questions of our moderator, Sarah Smith, and then those of audience members as well. A collection of door prizes was drawn in a random selection of people who intended to be at our launch. There’s a story there too, about draws and intentions, but not for today.

May this post be helpful to you as you consider a book for your needs and interest.

Both books available to purchase in my website store.