Celebrating the WLC - Bonnie Trachtenberg talks Uniting a Community

Guest post from author Bonnie Trachtenberg

Free E-book Friday Coordinator for the WLC

WLC and Me

There have been only a handful of serendipitous moments in my life that I can point to as watershed events—experiences that bolstered my career and set me on the trajectory for success. Each one of these things happened completely against the odds, leading me to believe they must have been cosmically pre-arranged. Meeting Melissa Foster was one of these special moments.

I cannot remember exactly how our paths crossed. I was new to the social marketing world, making my way on Facebook and Twitter, meeting hundreds of people in passing. Melissa, however, took the time to tell me about the launch of her upcoming book Come Backto Me. She even asked me if I was interested in being part of it. I wasn’t sure what that entailed, but as I was taking advantage of every interesting promotional offer that came my way, I of course agreed. Then I went back to the overwhelming fury I had come to know as social marketing.

Weeks later, as promised, Melissa got in touch, and brought me and my recently released book, Wedlocked, into the fold of the Come Back to Me launch. I was one of thirty-four indie authors who were privileged, honored and let’s face it, lucky, enough to dedicate countless hours of our days, for many weeks, for this effort. Many of us jumped in not knowing what to expect, but learned on the fly what we needed to do. With Melissa at the helm, the Come Back to Me launch was a resounding success, not only for her book, but for all of ours as well. Wedlocked, in particular, was catapulted to bestsellerdom for almost three weeks, and has remained very high in Amazon’s rankings ever since.

Along the way, Melissa and many of the other talented authors, taught me so much about this new world of internet publishing in which we were now all pioneers. In fact, I learned more from them in a matter of weeks, than I ever could have imagined possible. We weren’t merely people working together, we became a family that eagerly pulled together to comfort and celebrate, to teach and to innovate. When the launch was over, many of us enthusiastically volunteered to help Melissa, who was turning her ground-breaking website WoMen’s Lit Café (WLC), into the most useful and supportive go-to community for indie authors the world over. The vast changes in the publishing industry have led us to a miraculous new model. Without a traditional publisher to handle the things every author needs for success, we’ve turned to each other, and as Melissa would say, became “a force to be reckoned with.” That’s what WLC is all about.

WLC isn’t just a place you can stop in for a promotion or two when your book needs a boost (although you can!). It’s a functional family with whom you can live and grow on a daily basis, a place to forge powerful personal connections. It’s a place where you can become the closest of friends with people you’ve never even met in person, people who live all over the globe, people who have more in common with you than you ever could have imagined. Melissa isn’t just an extraordinarily innovative and creative dynamo, she’s also one of the most selfless, supportive, and caring human beings I’ve ever been privileged to know. She inspires greatness in others. She does not believe one person’s success detracts from another’s. She has taught us all that in lifting each other up, we all benefit—we all succeed.

As writers who must market ourselves, often to the detriment of our writing time, we need to be smart about how we spend every precious minute. If you want to get the most out of your efforts, WLC is the best place to be. It truly is a community of wonderful, caring people who will go out of their way to share information, offer their experiences, and help you navigate all the inventive new ways to promote your book. Boosting other authors is their credo, and they take it seriously. My advice: join every WLC promotion you are qualified for and take the time to forge friendships in the forums. You may find, like I did, that there is no place out there in virtual world, that’s as real as WLC. 

 Author Bonnie Trachtenberg

http://www.BonnieTrachtenberg.com/Bonnies-Blog

Bonnie Your post could have easily been my own story!  So well told!  You have been such a great inspiration and friend to all of us! I so agree with your thoughts on Melissa!   Thank you so much for being here today!  ~ Stacy

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