Wow, where did the month go? It's been great fun chatting with everyone and it is my prayer that this is just the beginning of many new friendships. Please don't think because my Forum month is over that you can't contact me. I welcome your emails at any time, okay? Feel free to stay in touch, I mean this. Don't be shy.

Thanks to those of you who signed up for my free e-zine. I have a lot of exciting things planned in 2007 for baby boomer women! I'll be launching a whole new web site and a new e-zine focus especially for baby boomer women and we'll be offering FREE downloadable MP3 files of motivational and inspirational messages from me, as well as lots of writing tools from someone who really knows his business. If you have not yet subscribed please visit my web site at www.godallowsuturns.com

Let’s start by answering Lynnie’s series of questions. Good questions, girlfriend!

Yes, my new target market is Baby Boomer Women. My target market is different for the God Allows U-Turns anthology books and the U-Turns overall outreach. My over arching BBW message is that it’s never too late to turn around and change direction, or to achieve a dream, or to chart a new course in life. I’ve developed a new mission statement, tag line, and lots of other defined strategies that will help me stay on track as I prepare to launch this new aspect of my writing business in 2007. I’ll be offering many of these strategic planning tools in a series of teleseminars with best selling author RANDY INGERMANSON in 2007. We have a great teleseminar in development that we’ll be offering in January specifically for writers who want to jump start their writing career for the new year. You can visit Randy’s web site here: www.randyingermanson.com you might want to consider signing up for his e-zine as well, and make sure to tell him I sent you, okay?

Lynnie’s next questions are in reference to the financial investment of writing and promoting. The old saying that you must “Spend money to make money” is very true when it comes to the business of writing. I’ve paid for a great deal of advertising over the years, mostly to solicit true short story submissions. My publisher pays for ads in the trade magazines to promote my books when they are first released. My agent gets 15% of everything I make, and he is well worth it. You can visit his web site here: www.stevelaube.com This past year I hired a professional P.R. firm to help promote my debut novel. My publisher has an in-house publicist who is very helpful, but many authors will incur the expense of hiring someone on their own to add a promotional punch to a new release. A huge expense every year has been the technical investment including hardware, software, web designers, ISP service, and a host of other tech needs. My business is set-up as an “LLC” (Limited Liability Corporation,) and this is something I encourage writers to discuss with a CPA. There are numerous ways to set-up your business and what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander. I believe my publisher has set-up the “search inside” feature on Amazon.com…they handle all of the submissions to various online sites. Long story short, there are a lot of expenses for writers. God willing, we’ll sell enough books to stay in the black…or at least to get in the black at some point.

Okay ladies, I think that’s it…no other questions have been posted today. Wah! I’ll check back later tonight just in case anyone has any last minute thoughts they’d like to share. But I’d like to close in saying that it’s been an honor to spend time with y’all this past month. I will keep each of you in prayer as you pursue your dreams of writing and publishing. And believe me when I say that I welcome your emails at any time.

Have a blessed evening and I’ll be back in a few hours.

Allison Bottke
www.godallowsuturns.com