trails

Yesterday, my wife and I took the dogs on a hike at a nearby park. There were miles and miles of trails through this wooded area with a little creek running through it. Since we were pressed for time (it was nearing dusk), we just did a small loop.

The dogs did pretty good on the trail. Milo kept trying to rush ahead and his collar would choke him (we haven't gotten him a harness yet). Zailey would suddenly stop every once in a while because she found something interesting to sniff. I think they really enjoyed being out.

We had a hard time deciding what trails to take. We had no map and when one trail intersected another, we couldn't decide. We just had to take one that looked to keep us close to the parking lot so we wouldn't be fumbling around in the dark. There were so many other trails that looked interesting, though.

One thing I am struggling with in my marketing is getting trails going to my books. I'm defining a trail as a lead from one item to another. The idea is that once a person discovers one item, they can easily find another that I am offering. Instead of making just a single sale, I can make two assuming the person liked the first thing they read.

I've got a trail at the end of Dark Matter: A Collection of Stories going to Shorts: A Collection of Stories, but nothing leading to either of the books. People are stumbling across Shorts because of its cover, but I'm relying too much on luck.

Trails to my books aren't going to be easy to make. I think I have an idea on how to make some, but I just don't know if that idea will work. Wish me luck!

The next time my wife and I take the dogs to the park, we'll be blazing some new trails. I hope that my next blog post will talk about the success of my book trails as I blaze new ones of those. Happy trails!