Here. Now. Actual change.

One of the things that never showed up in all my fantasies about being a “published author” was the part about (Dare I say it?) “marketing”! The visions in my head were all about tea in lovely china cups and cozy windowseats full of pillows or even, for you Betsy & Tacy fans, an old trunk that served as a great desk in the days when sitting on the floor was more of an option that it seems like after six knee surgeries!

Well, as the old saying goes, “Elvis isn’t cutting records anymore,” and if you want people to actually, you know, use what you write to make their corner of the world a bit better, marketing is involved! All of which led me to sign up for a webinar this week that simultaneously frustrated the be-jeebers out of me and gave me a cool new thought to contemplate. (Or at least a more immediate awareness of an old thought I’d encountered before!)

According to the speaker from bibliocrunch, which is hooked up somehow with the folks who sell ISBN’s for books, there’s only one thing to know about marketing. No matter what you happen to be selling, what people are buying is a new story.

You knew that! I did, too. Though from a different context. Somewhere, probably at Pacifica Graduate Institute, I learned that Freudian therapy was essentially the process of trading old, ineffective stories for new, more helpful ones. And, while I would never claim to be a Freudian, I’ve spent a good bit of time helping folks to do just that.

In fact, this book is about trading old, ineffective–even harmful in some cases–stories for new, more helpful ones about food. Specifically, a way to trade in our cultural stories about “fast, easy” food for a new story about an old food that really can be fast, easy, fabulous, and healthy once you get the hang of it–bone broth.

Ironically, perhaps, it’s also my story of doing just that. Plus, all the reasons I’m so glad I did, and what to do with all the delicious broth you’ll make. Oh, and just in case you don’t eat meat (or whatever), there are broth recipes included for vegans and Paleo folks and Pescetaritans, as well as WildFit/sibo/FODMAP people (You know who you are!) and those with food allergies.  Even the family pet!

Here’s where this gets even better! My new friends at bibliocrunch also reminded me that it’s not terribly effective to try to talk folks out of their old stories. Instead, marketing is about giving them what they need to risk believing a new one, an additional story that will, one day, cause the old one to fade into the dim corners of things we used to believe.

(It also explains a lot about this election cycle!)

The writer in me has done her very best at that with Let’s Boil Bones…

The grandmother in me, who wants a better, healthier, more just world for all our kids, is going to suck it up and do some marketing because just having my name on another book doesn’t change anything except my Amazon bio and we need lots more change than that.

One of those changes that we can actually do something about is right there in the muscle memories of hands wrapped in gratitude around a steaming bowl of hope. Deep breaths scented with the abundance of the moment. A hint of magic in the world.

I’d love it if you’d join me!

Click the photo above to get the Kindle version for 99 cents today. (And help make a bestseller!!!) It even comes with a recipe for Peacemaking Parties and amazing bonus recipes, too! Deep breaths. The magic starts in a moment. Thank you.