EDIE RAMER--Forced out of her comfort zone

Please help me welcome successful, self-published author Edie Ramer to the blog. [Rebecca's note: Self-publishing? Yikes!! All that promo. Talk about an introvert's worst nightmare]

Rebecca, thank you so much for inviting me. ShyWriters is the perfect place for me. In my short bio I say that I’m funnier on paper than in real life, yet Facebook and Twitter are a part of my day now. It would be nice to be naturally witty and funny, or even say profound Oprah-like things that make people reply “OMG, that is so inspirational and insightful!” Once in a while, I can be funny or insightful, but most of the time, I search for something—anything—interesting to say.

Oddly, blogging is easier. I’m one of the founders of Magical Musings. When my two CPs and I started it, I wasn’t sure how I’d do, but I was game. It turned out that I was good at blogging (hey, I can admit it when I do things right). But I tweak mine several times, just as I tweak my mss. My fellow blogger, Liz Kreger, writes hers in about 10-15 minutes, and she’s good at blogging, too. A natural. But she’s probably solidly on the extrovert side of the Myers-Briggs scale, while I’m on the introvert side.

That’s why writing a book, alone in my office, is something I love doing. But self-publishing has forced me into the online world. I’m so lucky that I’ve joined groups that have helped me pave the way. First, my local RWA group, WisRWA. In the beginning, I went to every meeting. At first I hardly said anything, but in about 3 years I was leading the meetings. I joined Amy Atwell’s first GIAM group. In the beginning, I was silent, an observer. Now I’m as noisy as anyone. I joined a critique group. There were 8 of us, and though it’s disbanded, we’re still friends. (BTW, since we started, everyone in it has published and 2 members are NY Times bestselling authors.)

Through Magical Musings, I’ve made a lot of writer friends. I’m a member of RWA-WF and I write their Industry News column. I belong to 2 groups formed to help each other through the self- publishing maze. Members of these 2 groups are urging me to join 2 others, and I know I need to become active on Kindleboards… (insert silent scream)

This is a LOT of socializing for a shy writer. Not only that, my involvement with the groups takes away from my writing time. But through the contacts my first self-published book, Cattitude, is now 1416 in the Amazon Kindle bestseller rank. (That includes ALL the Kindle books, so that’s awesome for me.) I’ve had it on sale for 99 cents, so that contributes. Dead People, which is $2.99, is in the 35K rank now. (These ranks fluctuate by the hour.) But I know the big jump for Cattitude has come because of promo help from my friends.

I think I have a “go ahead, try it” voice inside of me that overrides the introvert voice. Sometimes it’s too much (hence the silent scream), but I know extroverts who’ve had to back away from the internet for weeks at a time. Karin Tabke calls it “going into her Bat Cave.” I can’t afford to go into my cave now (mine would be, of course, Cat Cave—or Cat & Dog Cave, since I often have a snoring beagle in my office as well as a purring cat who demands attention), but in the future I might disappear for a week or two every once in a while.

So for now, this shy writer is way out of her comfort zone. It’s all good, I’m making great friends, selling books, and looking forward to selling more.

What have you done lately that’s taken you out of your comfort zone?

Award-winning writer Edie Ramer is funnier on the page than in real life. She loves her cat so much she made her the heroine of CATTITUDE, her first paranormal romance. Her second book, DEAD PEOPLE, Book one of her Haunted Hearts series, was her American Title V final book. She also has a short story available. You can find out more about Edie and her books on her website. You can follow her on Twitter and on Facebook, where once in a great while she manages to be witty.