I’ve been hearing all the things I “should” do to promote my book and my new upcoming publications. Everybody seems to have their own ideas about how I should find the top marketer, a stellar agent, a glitzy webmaster, a renowned videographer, a world-wide distributor, etc. Unfortunately all of these wonderful suggestions cost money…our money (my husband’s and mine). We have no funders. We have no patrons. It’s just us.
So we have been paying for book editing, proofreading, printing and publishing out of our everyday budget and it is causing great strain. I was stopped dead desperate to decide not when to go forward, but if to go forward. I just quit writing, planning, scheduling and all manner of future-oriented strategy.
Instead I started paying attention to nothingness. I focused on simplicity, beginning in a most rudimentary way. I set aside complicated dinner menus that took a special trip to the grocery for intricate recipe ingredients. I started concocting meals from whatever I had in the fridge, freezer and pantry. We had some really good meals that we’d love to replicate but can’t because we’ll likely never again have those same dibs and dabs of stuff.
I watched only TV comedy and read only uplifting articles. At the culmination of this active meditation, I happened to be watching Ken Burn’s documentaries on the U.S. National Parks. I learned how John Muir tried to do speaking engagements and lobby congress to set aside these beautiful expanses for the use of our nation’s people, their children, and their children’s children. When that failed, he decided to “take it to the people”. He wrote books, magazine articles, and pamphlets extolling the grandeur and the spiritually regenerative power of Yosemite’s promontories and Yellowstone’s compelling vistas. Muir invited his readers to take part in the glory of promise, to make it their own.
It dawned on me then that my message about saving lives from suicide requires that same people-oriented campaign. I don’t need fancy doodads, bells and whistles. I need to go directly to the people…to you and talk to you…invoke in you the desire to take action.
My job is not to spend time creating the perfect marketing devise. My job is to spread the word, person to person, standing shoulder to shoulder with the readers and the livers of life. My words need to empower any average person to know what to say, how to act, and how to support and follow through with anyone they know or suspect might be suicidal.
I need to give up the “fame game”. I need to quit clamoring for the ideal venue, to be like all the rest who vie for the perfect promotion. The way is right in front of me, at my very fingertips. I give the honor and duty to you.
If you will keep reading, you will develop the ability to save lives with your words and your actions. You will understand that all the doctors and clinicians and hospitals and drugs in the world cannot accomplish what you can. With your words and your will you can teach someone how to save their own life.
Keep coming back and I will teach you, one concept at a time, aspects that no one else knows and no one else has ever published. You have to live through this, like I did, to know how to deal with it. You can read ahead and learn them all in my book, “Just Because You’re Suicidal Doesn’t Mean You’re Crazy”, and on my website, htttp://www.jsp3.org.
But I am here. Now I know to give up the fame game means to put the knowledge and the power in your hands directly…no middleman and no gimmicks. And I intend to do just that. Between you and I, we can turn around the terrible tide that is suicidality. We can make the change that will halt the 65% increase in the world’s suicides in the last 45 years. We can do it…together.