Lake Atitlan, Panajachel, Guatemala

Friday, January 27, 2012

"Getting in on the ground floor"

I have a sister who has done direct sales for most of her married life. She liked it because she could work from home while making friends and a little spending money. She tried various direct sales companies, always with some success but never found "the one" until about five years ago when a sales buddy told her about a new start-up called Scentsy.

My sister, who had recently left Pampered Chef, signed right up. With her sales experience and wide range of contacts, she quickly rose to the top of things and is now making more money than she ever dreamed possible.

This is called "getting in on the ground floor." It's also called "the early bird gets the worm," and it's these rare opportunities that people fantasize about. Although I'm not interested in direct sales or jealous of my sister's success in her chosen career path, I must admit that I'm jealous of those people who got right in on the ground floor of Kindle sales.

The Kindle store daily gets more crowded, making it difficult to have the same success those early birds had. Putting a title on sale now for .99 won't guarantee anything, because the market is glutted. But that used to be the best way to grab attention for your book. Then there's regular Amazon, where countless millions of print books are listed. You can sell a book a day and still find yourself stuck in the six digit ranking.

If you take a wander through Celerytree.com, you'll see just a handful of authors and books. Choosing a book to buy will be like a pleasant, relaxed saunter through the village bookstore. And you might even run into someone you know *wink* on the Author Profile Pages and the Forum.

Celery Tree is like a brand new direct sales company for authors, only without the phone calls and setting up parties in peoples' homes (a reclusive writers worst nightmare of a job). It's online, where many of us are the most comfortable.

One writer wrote in her email, "I am thrilled by this 'co-op' idea! Farmers have been doing this for years, and it makes sense to finally have it in the writing arena."

So call us a direct sales company, a co-op for published authors, a start-up internet website, an online bookstore....or call us Celery Tree, because we are humble and easily overlooked like celery, but we will grow mighty like a tree.

Right now we're small but dedicated, unknown but determined; I do not expect we'll stay small for long. Not judging by the response from this blog tour. If I had any doubts before, your blog posts, comments and overall responses of the past three weeks have shown me otherwise. Clearly this is an idea whose time has come. Writers want a central location that's not only for networking and links but which also encourages and facilitates the buying of books

Leave the Jungle. Join our Village!

For more wrap up of the Big Blog Tour, see the Celery Tree blog.

13 comments:

  1. Hope your journey from ground floor to penthouse is a quick and great one!

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  2. Very cool thing you are doing here. Exciting as well.

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  3. You are so right -- being the first to the table with a great idea makes all the difference. Lots of luck with Celery Tree!

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  4. I do like the farmer's market analogy!! Wonderful!

    Hoorah for your sister!! Hoorah for you!! What a most talented and amazing family!

    Take care
    x

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  5. You'll have an office with windows soon.

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  6. Hope you're so successful that your sister wonders how YOU did it!

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  7. You created your own ground floor and that is inspirational. I love your analogy to celery. I truly believe you will grow to be mighty! Have a great weekend, Karen!

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  8. Amazon or even a typical bookstore can be overwhelming. If you don't have a stack of books on a display at the front entrance or a promo page from Amazon, your little ol' book can get pretty lost. You're doing a good job of bringing the more personal touch to book selling.


    Lee
    Wrote By Rote

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  9. Best wishes to Celery Tree! Like Arlee, I think you'll go a long way as a result of the personal touch!

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  10. I enjoy browsng celery tree and I wll go back to it to get books! Congratulations on this interesting endeavor.

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  11. Hi Karen .. Celery Tree is great - I know I'll get a range of books - and that is growing .. and I support authors getting on the road ..

    Wonderful idea .. and I'm around .. cheers Hilary

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  12. This is a terrific entry, and your blog is wonderful. I'm now following.

    If you've the chance, take a look at my blog. I'm the award winning author of the Bella and Britt series for kids.

    Thanks for sharing.

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