Well, VT has a functional website again. It’s still a little buggy, and we’re still missing a ton of content, but at least we don’t have a static “under construction” message for a website anymore.

Some of our book pages don’t show all the formats available… and lots of our 2010 releases are missing totally. I’ve managed to repost all of our press releases, and I’ve posted two author bios, but none of the events are showing, and I have dozens of author appearances and news to repost. Our newsletter program needs to be set up from scratch, and oh yeah, I’m about 3 books behind in our publication schedule.

This is starting out to be one heckuva year. At least the Mariners are looking good… better than I’ve seen ‘em in a couple of years. Even my Yankee-holic brother sent me an email with a gruding comment that the M’s just might be the team to beat. Spring training is just around the corner. I’m really looking forward to being able to sit back and watch some baseball. It’s how I relax… when I’m not swearing at a bad call or a bungled play or smacking my husband because he’s making another Ichiro crack. God, I miss baseball!

I’ve got such a bad case of “woulda, shoulda, coulda” right now, because I feel like I’m letting people down. We just released THE EPSILON ERIDANI ALTERNATIVE in December, and all the promo is missing from the website. And the author of THE FIGUREHEAD (May 2010 release) just started promoting his book, and none of the links he’s posted work. And of course, we were supposed to release LEGION and I WILL in January… but that’s going to have to wait until next month.

I know that in some respects, it’s been for the best. We really needed to upgrade to Joomla 1.5, and we knew that. The new website has a lot of cool features, and we’ve installed some extra security programs and an automated daily backup system. And eventually, all of the old content will be back up again. Who knows? I might even be able to get caught up with the original new release schedule by the summer. Yeah.

I still can’t help thinking about what a different place I would be in the website hadn’t been hacked… or if we’d been able to find a current backup that wasn’t corrupt.

Funny thing is, it’s like that with Marketing sometimes, too. I can run a really good campaign, execute it flawlessly, get really good results… and then, as I analyze those results, I think about what I should do to make it better the next time, and suddenly, I find myself feeling dissatisfied with the last campaign.

Poof! Just like that, I’ve gone from happy to deflated in less than 60 seconds.

In reality, marketing is a building process. One action springs out of a previous action, and each new activity builds upon the last. It’s supposed to keep growing and improving, and therein lies the joy. My next post is going to focus on one seed I planted last fall that is really starting to pay off — and it’s something that every author should be doing. Best of all, once it’s set up, you don’t have to do anything except open your email. The information you need to have this marketing tool start really paying off will simply come to you automatically… with very little effort required.

Sheri

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