Homeless But Set Free

There's a new look on my blog.

I thought it was time for a change. It probably took me twice as long as most people to do something as simple as making changes, and I still haven't figured everything out.

But I'm not going to give up.

Thank you so much for all your love and support of my first novel release "Broken Butterfly". I have been so truly blessed to have so much support from my friends and family.

I have to admit, marketing is not easy. Especially when you feel like those who see your posts will think ... "not again" ... "I'm tired of hearing about this book. Enough is enough." Or I keep offering to give away free books (ebooks) but the response is minimal. I even had one post where NOONE even acknowledged it. Except for one friend, who shared it ... "she had already read it, and was even a critique partner", so technically she doesn't count as someone who wanted to win it! :)

THAT is disheartening. I love to win free stuff. Who doesn't?

If you've seen my posts, you may be wondering why in the world is she giving away so many ebooks in such a short period of time.

Believe me, I would prefer to spread this out over a year. But I wasn't given a choice.

I'm sad to say my distributing company is closing their doors and Broken Butterfly will be unavailable for a few weeks or more. Which means those ebooks I was given to use for marketing (which I'm trying so hard to do) will also expire this Thursday. So, after I got over my initial shock ... I had to go to work getting these ebooks distributed. I wanted to do it in a fun way ... by having contests. I hoped it would benefit me too in my effort to promote Broken Butterfly.

Is it working?

I don't know. But I have to keep pressing forward and do the best that I know how. And learn as much as I can along the way. Don't you love that we learn something new every day and will continue to learn for the rest of our lives. That's the way God designed us.

With Broken Butterfly being "Homeless" for a while, hopefully just a very short time, my marketing will decrease until I can get it distributed.

Which brings me to another point. I was devastated at first to find out this company was closing and I would be losing a lot of what I invested in. But then I prayed about it and came to realize, this could be a great opportunity for my book. I'm excited to start a new journey and looking forward to the doors God is going to open for me. Although Broken Butterfly is homeless, at the same time she's being set free. It sort of reminds me of my main character Mallory. How appropriate!

(My beautiful future daughter inlaw and model for Broken Butterfly...

photo credits go to my daughter Brooklyn Patterson)

If you haven't bought your copy of Broken Butterfly, it will be available on Amazon until April 30th. I do have paperback copies available and have even added a paypal button to my new Book page. You can now buy signed copies directly from me. Woo hoo!

ONE MORE THING!! I have a few more ebook copies to give away. Leave a comment to be entered for your chance to win one of them. If you've already read it and want to give it to a friend or relative, I can send it to whoever you want it to go to. What a great gift that would be! :)

Thank you so much for stopping by,

Cindy

Goals You CAN Achieve

I've been thinking about Goal Setting and how it could change the success of many aspects of our life. 

But where do you start?

Where do you WANT to see yourself tomorrow, in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?

The biggest challenge in setting goals is Fear Of Failure. What if it doesn't work? What if I'm still in the same place I am today 5 years from now? And the biggest one I face .... What will people think of me if I fail?

But the better questions we should ask ourselves is ... What can it hurt to try? What if we do succeed?

I've always considered myself a positive thinker, but positive thinking is not going to get me the results I'm looking for.

When it comes to stepping out of my comfort zone and really seeing myself something other than what I am today, it scares the life out of me. Do I want to succeed? Yes! Am I scared I'll fail? Absolutely!

The first thing we have to do is seek God's will for our lives. Without Him as the center, things will be disastrous, even if you do succeed.

With goal setting, it's better to start with small reasonable goals that are possible to achieve. Our large goals should seem unattainable at first.

Write them down. Every day. You may think this is a waste of time, but it's not. Goals don't just give us something to aim for, it gives us something to become. When you become what you desire, you will have what you desire.

I know what I want. I can visualize it.

And that's the very thing that will help us succeed. Visualization is something we use self consciously. Anything we can clearly picture in our mind, we can accomplish. Visualize yourself reaching your goal whatever it may be and you're half way to success.

Today, I'm making a decision to push this fear of failure to the back corners of my mind and throwing caution to the wind. I'm going to go after this thing with all I've got.

The worst thing that could happen if I try ...

I can't think of anything any worse that what I'm doing now. Which is very little to almost nothing. Do they mean the same thing? Yes. So why am I going to sit back and waste time dreaming about something I want so badly, when I can put all my effort into it and start seeing positive results.

Will it be easy?

Probably not. But neither was writing a book and I did that. But I couldn't have done it without the help of my heavenly Father.

Hearing my readers tell me how much they loved the story "Broken Butterfly", how they couldn't put it down, how they can't wait to read another one ... Is a huge success.  :)

So why in the world would I want to stop there?

I'm not. And to get this started, I'm going to share three of my short term goals.

It's difficult to get dinner prepared after working all day, homeschooling, picking one child up from practice and dropping another one off at dance. But I love sitting around the table with my family and having dinner together. And I love to cook, y'all. I got that from my mama!! :)

Goal for Tomorrow for my family: To cook dinner

I'm editing my next book (that needs a lot of work) to (pre)prepare for my editor and to "submit to an agent". "long term goal"

Goal for Tomorrow for my writing: Spend at least 30 minutes editing

And one more for the month of April and May: To post on my blog at least once a week :) 

 I'm going to write these down every day and keep adding to the list.

Will you join me on this ride to success? I can't wait to share our stories of victory with each other.

I'd love to hear your short term goals?

Thank you for stopping by,

Cindy


Get your copy of Broken Butterfly here:

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Butterfly-Cindy-Patterson/dp/1462755739/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428881810&sr=8-1&keywords=broken+butterfly