It is nearly October and the retreat season has ended. During the summer, we host our Connect with Horses retreats, in the winter I write.
I am already working on a new book, as you may know. My first book, Horse Riding Confidence Secrets, supports our residential Confidence Clinics for horse riders. My new book supports our Connect with Horses Clinics. As it says in the book blurb, “I wrote this book to enable women to live long, happy, healthy and fulfilling lives, full of purpose and meaning.”
To sell my new book, I created several confidence memes to use on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest etc. As with my first book, I am not going to hard sell it. Soft selling works fine for my first book. Despite all the hype about author platforms and social media marketing, if you have written a book that helps people solve a problem, they will buy it.
I like retweeting and pinning other peoples’ memes. Something with a message that has meaning, something that inspires or motivates, something that I can relate to…so I decided to create a few of my own.
I have resisted the urge to advertise my book on each meme. I just added my author website address. If people like the meme, I am hoping they will have a look at my website. If they like the meme but don’t visit my site, I would still have achieved something: I might have inspired them to walk a bit taller, hold their heads a bit higher, feel a bit more confident about their own abilities. That is after all why I wrote the book, to help people increase their self-esteem.
If they do visit the website, I have written a short, sharp guide ’10 Simple Steps to Instant Self-Confidence’ to offer as a free gift to people who subscribe to my e-zine, Mpower. So I think I have all bases covered.
I am not so keen on the marketing side of all this, but I do love the creative side. I love writing, so no effort there. I love creating all the pictures that go with the various marketing efforts, especially the memes. All I need to do now is to remember to actually share my creations on Twitter, Facebook etc. I thought I would start here. Hope some of these inspire you too.
My author website is here: MargarethaMontagu.com, should you feel like visiting.
Equine Guided Growth 
The wife and I really love this blog and appreciate the creativity and imagery you provide. Our minds are marvelous and capable of amazing feats, yet most people use them to do little jobs because they lack the confidence you identified in this article. If you ever want to take this blog to the next level by offering a Mobile App version my company Zenlight would love to help for an extremely low price, we appreciate the hard work you have put into this blog and wish you all future success in business and in life.
Thank you for your time, it is the most precious thing we all possess.
-Jacque’
Can’t afford it at the moment, Jacque’, but this is so beautifully written that I am putting it up on my blog in case anyone else is interested.
Margaretha , I appreciate you and bloggers like you who use your precious time to put your thoughts out their so that people like me can be inspired, it takes courage and the world will be better because of it.
-Jacque’
Beautiful memes and this is such a great idea for promotion and marketing.
Making these recharge my creative batteries.
I love it Margaretha! You have inspired me to try something with memes. Thank you!
I love what you are doing Margaretha. Your memes are beautiful.
En plus, it is great fun making them!
Why yes I do feel like visiting
Bring the boys, they’ll love the horses.
I can’t think of a lovelier, more inspiring part of the world than Provence. Sounds like you walk your talk about confidence. Keep going with that book!
Ah, but this is not Provence – Provence is 5 hours’ drive from here. This is Gascony! Do not worry if you do not know where it is, its location is a well-kept secret. Thank you for the encouragement, Laurie.
I’m heading for France in May. Paris, a cruise and then Loire Valley.
I am only an hour by plane south of Paris. Three hours with the TGV. Any chance of a visit?
Hi, Margaretha! Did your summer go well?
Hi Marina!
Yes, although not as well as usual – Brexit and the terrorist attacks did some damage to our bookings. We were lucky though, we only had a small drop in our bookings. The bed-and-breakfast and self-catering people were hit much harder. Some barely had any bookings at all. How are things with you?
Difficult. Greece is crumbling (still fantastic for holidays, but these are not enjoyed by Greeks at the moment…) We never got much of a summer vacation ourselves, but I did get to spend time in Normandy, which was lovely. It’s the stress that’s killing us, though – trying to survive, and the future looks dark still. We take one day at a time. Riding, writing and painting are my consolations. And my grandchildren, of course.
Difficult times. I can well understand that it must be very stressful. Like you, I use riding and writing as an escape. Reading your blog also cheers me up. I figure that if there are still young professional people in Greece who can think positively about the future, then there may just be hope for the rest of us. Many people here in the south of France are dependent on tourism for their income, so all this has hit them hard, not only financially but also psychologically. At least you managed to spend some time in Normandy. Very good place for painting, if I remember correctlY.
Yes, and full of horses! X
I miss Normandy…I miss the green grass. Had a severe drought here this year. High 30’s for most of August.
Normandy was also hotter and dryer than usual. Yellowish paddocks. We went to Etretat a week ago and had a swim that was as warm as Greece!