By Steffanie Costigan

April 10, 2024

Being a journalist, I often start things off with a quote, so here I go. “The secret of making progress is to get started.” ~ Mark Twain

This weekend I took my family’s visit to Calgary as an opportunity to deliver some books to local Chapters and Indigo Spirit in Calgary. I also have many other local stores there in the process of looking over my book to consider it as a part of their stock. 

I’m excited as it is looking like in May, I will be doing a couple of local book signings in Calgary closer to the time I will share more details regarding that. Just as I talked about in the past as an indie author it’s important to grow your roots before your tree can start to flourish with fruits. Well, it’s the same for authors.

Establishing yourselves in your hometown is important but once you have done that it’s just as important to expand your roots outside of your community into another. Taking baby steps until you are able to walk and then run is one of the keys to book marketing. 

You hear indie authors say it all the time, ‘writing the book is the easiest part it’s the marketing that becomes challenging.’ That is because, with the increase in social media, this has changed the book publishing world. More than ever authors are self-publishing increasing the sea of books and authors shouting to raise awareness.   

Being an individual who struggles with patience I dream big but realistically I find myself struggling with patience the processing time. I want things to move and grow quickly, I try to stay one step ahead always but get frustrated with how long things can take. However last week was a harder week for me.

I found myself so distracted forgetting to do the simple tasks to stay one step ahead and before I knew it, I had fallen behind. I realized I had been moving so fast for so long that I missed the signs in my own personal growth. Refocusing myself I discovered the need to take baby steps and that there was no shame in taking the much-needed patience steps. There were opportunities in places most didn’t realize to look.

Everyone’s writing journey is different we just don’t always realize it, we are so focused on the bigger shoes of other authors that we forget the baby steps they took to reach those big shoes. There is a humble honour in starting off small and growing until you are ready to expand your book into other communities nearby. This is how growing works, and sometimes with that growing experiencing growing pain. 

There is a joy I have found starting my book off in my own local community and then expanding to other communities meeting new people that take the adventure of reading Land of the Dragon.