Dear Roger: Running Uphill

Oh my gosh! It has been an amazing few days, and now that my baby girl is back home from her adventures at church camp and I am sort of back to being myself, I am sure they are only going to get more amazing. I have been trying to get word out about my books and my website as much as possible, but its slow going and I have found that most people seem to really like the paper books that I sign and send out to them, or sell to them personally, so what I have been doing is ordering them in, taking orders from people and then shipping them out and selling them. Mostly everyone has been really good about getting me paid and its been a good way of doing business, so I decided to  see if I could expand upon on that by contacting local businesses to see if they would be interested in carrying my book. I had hoped for maybe a consignment thing with a coffee shop, but after a brief meeting, I left with an order for 10 copies of each of my books and they are going to pay me for them in advance, as in BEFORE they sell them! They want ME to "Commit" to a book signing and they will promote me, and I will be be linking my website to them as an early,"Supporter". As I was on my way home, I stopped off at another store and talked to the owner and they wanted to order 13 sets of my books! It may not seem like a huge deal to the big dog authors out there, but considering I was on foot and I had just sold myself completely out of all of my stock and then some, its a pretty damn huge deal! I have no idea how I am going to manage to buy in the stock I need to meet all the orders, but I am hoping that between working some extra hours at my day job and cutting back in a few other ways, I may just be able to swing it.
My son is forcing me to try a Kickstarter campaign, and we have bickered back and forth about it pretty fiercely. I hate asking folks for any money when I know times are hard and people are strapped to pay for food, but he pointed out that the two I had donated to both belonged to people who were not missing meals like I had, they were simply funding artistic projects, and I will go without to fund my attempt to provide a brighter future for my family by getting my books out to people. We set up the beginning of it last night and he is going to film some kind of video for it in the next day or two that explains what we are looking for. I made him limit the time and amount to the bare minimum and if it works, it means we will be able to hit the ground running with enough stock and publicity materials to really get things going.
The website is mostly up and running and as I can corral him to work on it, he is adding in the pages I want. We got the "Inspirations" page up yesterday and Spencer Bell was the first he put up with a link back to the SBL website after the wonderful Bill Bell granted us permission. Today we added in the 100 Monkeys and its sad that there is nothing to link to anymore, but I wrote a little piece about what they were and are to people.
The next page to go up will be the,"Sponsors and Affiliates" page and it is there that I will put the logos and links to those who have supported and helped and who have inspired me and helped other Indie artists along the way. I hope to build a networking place where the links can lead people to connect with the services they need to help get themselves the things they need, like maybe logos or maybe screenwriting or editing or promotions that way we can guide each other along and support each other.
My son is a already working on the music for  book trailer for my "Paying the Piper", he didn't even ask me what music I had listened to when I wrote it, he knows, but he doesn't care. He will write me a new song, he will play it, record it and we will have our own. I have friends shooting the pictures, and we will use them, credit them and it is slowly going from a singular effort that I did quietly and almost ashamedly, to an effort that is a team united by a common goal of paying things forward and seeing all succeed.
I spent several hours this last couple weeks talking to people about following their dreams and writing as well as publishing, and I told them my crazy story about following a band of monkeys to the sunshine. They may have initially looked at me like I was crazy, but I got hugged twice and one little old lady got tears in her eyes, so I guess its a story that makes a point that every has to find their reason and once they do, they are going to want to make sure they pull others along as well.
I cant bring the band that started it all though God knows I would give just about any vital body part to be able to do that, but I can ensure that the legacy continues in my little way. If you are an Indie Artist and want to work with me and network, shoot me a line and lets start connecting things and people brought together by the 100th Monkey effect to ensure that it never stops. JenniferDScroggins.com hit the guestbook and say "Hello!"