Adam Oster, Novelist

If you’ve been following this space for any length of time, you’ll be well aware of how much I absolutely hate marketing. I worked as a salesman for a few months of my life, and ever since then I’ve had an incredibly bad taste in my mouth for anything remotely sounding like salesmanship. Marketing, obviously, falls into that realm.

So, with my books, I’ve been historically terrible at actually letting people know they exist, much less giving reasons for why anyone should read them. I have a hard time with the idea of convincing people to do something they don’t want to do. If you aren’t already reading my books, then I really don’t want to force you to do so.

But now, I have this big building and business that my wife and I just purchased, and that business needs to do a solid job of helping us be able to afford all the money we just promised the bank that we’d pay them back. This means that I’ve now found myself in the very real position of needing to rethink my feelings towards salesmanship, or as least to get over my hatred of it in order to use my writing talents to find ways to convince people there are very real reasons that they should come by and get a croissant and a coffee, and also maybe a few macarons…and a tart or five?

It’s been a long road these past couple weeks of trying to wrap my head around not being afraid of marketing. It helps that I’m not trying to sell myself, but instead my wife and this business, both of which I believe quite strongly in. But, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still trying to convince people to do something, regardless of their current feelings on the matter. I need you all to come out and check out the business and give it as much money as you can. I’m not looking for handouts, just you to choose this quaint little building in downtown Altoona for your weekend breakfast and lunch needs.

You absolutely won’t be disappointed.

So, yeah, like I said…I need to work on my marketing skills…

Or…you could buy one of my books for less than the cost of a cup of coffee…just saying 😉