Jumping Through The Hoops of Self-Publishing

Got back from my trip to the Chicago area last night--body exhausted, emotions drained, spirit soaring :-)

Jumped right back into all the activities I must pursue as an author choosing to self-publish; even though last night's work seems like it happened in a dream...

Significantly more conscious today. Ready to line up my sights on a few more hoops I need to jump through...

I just did a search on "jumping through hoops" ( I often go looking for things when I'm writing a blog post :-) and found a nice site that defines phrases, sayings, idioms and expressions.They talked about animals being trained to jump through hoops and reminded me that it's a difficult task that needs practice and may involve fire !

I went a bit further in my search, toward the more symbolic and humane activity of Native Americans. Found a cool video plus an article on the possible origins of hoop dancing that brought up the representation of animals in this traditional activity.

When I started my pre-self-publication promotion activities for my book, I did feel like a wild animal being forced to perform hard tasks that certainly seemed to compel me to confront danger and fear. Yet, learning them was mandatory if I wanted my book to appear before audiences giving me their approval.

Now that the actual publication is quite near and I have over a year of effort in promotion behind me, I feel more like a dancer sharing artistic lessons to the members of my tribe.

Speaking of tribes and their relationship to book promotion, I recommend checking out Internet Marketing Strategies That Work (Without Being Obnoxious) from Third Tribe Marketing.

I think all the activities necessary to letting the world know about a new book can be summed up in phrases like:

Find Your Tribe

Listen To Your Tribe

Serve Your Tribe

Love Your Tribe

And, realize that not all definitions are accurate. Here's the first one for "tribe" in my dictionary:
"A social division of (usually preliterate) people"
Hummm... Promoting a book to preliterates would really qualify as jumping through a hoop :-)

What are your experiences with learning new and seemingly fearful or dangerous tasks?

What has your Tribe taught you about life?

What particular hoop have you recently, successfully jumped through??