Inspired and Encouraged by New Author Deborah Vogts

New author and fellow Kansan, Deborah Vogts, gave me a double dose of inspiration and encouragement as she spoke at our FCW meeting last night. I’d been looking forward to the evening for months.

Last spring, after it was announced at FCW that Deborah, author of Snow Melts in Spring, would be our October speaker, she did a guest post for her agent Rachelle Gardner, whose blog I follow. After I realized Deborah lives in the same region I do, we exchanged a couple of emails, and I told her I would be at the Tulsa meeting where she would be speaking in October. Not long after that we became “friends” on Facebook. As you can imagine, it was fun last night to put a real person to the little face we see in our status updates from time to time.

At the meeting, Deborah spoke about promoting and marketing our books. Even though I and many of the other FCW members don’t have books published yet, Deborah showed us how important it is to start marketing ourselves before we ever have that first publishing contract.

She went on to share lots of good info about what to do at other stages of the publishing journey, but the thing I found so encouraging? I’m already doing several of the things Deborah said we could be doing before we’re published to help snag that first contract. She mentioned three things:

1) Build a web presence (I don’t have my own website yet, but I do have this blog — and even some readers!)

2) Join online social networks (find me on Facebook as well as the professional network LinkedIn.)

3) Create a newsletter to start building a database of readers (in November, I start year two of sending out Life Notes, my free quarterly inspirational newsletter. You may sign up for it on the sidebar to the right.)

Especially encouraging to me were the facts that Deborah didn’t have to have some magic number of blog readers to catch the interest of an agent or publisher. She also had only about 30 more newsletter subscribers than I currently do when Zondervan offered her a contract.

Talk about a shot in the arm! News like that inspires this little writer gal to keep on plugging away, doing the things I know I can do to be ready for publication — if and when that time comes.

This past week a couple of things jumped out at me from scripture as well about right timing. In John 7:6, Jesus said, “‘The right time for me has not yet come…'”, and verse 30 also points out “…his time had not yet come.” What an encouragement to just keep trusting God to bring about what He knows is best at the time He knows is best.

I appreciate my heavenly Father for the encouragement He gives through His Word, and I appreciate Deborah, a brand new author, for the inspiration and encouragement she gave me last night. Isn’t it great how God uses us to encourage one another? Let’s be that shot in the arm for others!

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up…” 1 Thessalonians 5:11a

Comments

  1. You just keep plugging along, your time will come, I am sure of it!

  2. Hi Cheryl,

    It was great to finally meet you last night. I’m so glad you were able to attend the meeting! Blessings to you on your writing journey. :)

  3. Dandy, welcome to my blog — thanks so much for your encouraging words!

    Deborah, glad you stopped in! Continued best wishes with the sale of your book and your work on the rest of the series!

  4. Great post, also love your Siesta verse…I almost chose it for March…may be my Nov 1st verse…

  5. Thanks, Annette! That’s neat how we’ve considered some of the same Siesta verses…

Leave a Comment

*