Katie Ganshert, Author at Katie Ganshert

Love and Marriage

Posted on March 23, 2012March 22, 2012 by Katie Ganshert

Love and marriage. They go together like a horse and carriage…

That song is totally going to be stuck in my head now.

Oi.

But seriously…

Marriage and love.

Love and marriage.

It’s not a simple thing, is it?

You live with a person long enough and it becomes incredibly easy to take that person for granted.

I promise you, I’m guilty.

Here I am, a romance author, and yet sometimes I feel like I could use a lesson in romance. How’s that for ironic?

I just finished reading Far from Here by Nicole Baart and wow. There are so many things I loved about this novel. The prose. The characters. The story.

And the poignant, honest moments when the main character, Dani, faced the truth about her marriage.

Here’s a paragraph that really grabbed me. It comes right after Dani’s husband, Etsell, tells her that she is his home.

I was twenty-one years old. Too young to realize what he was saying to me. Too naive to know that gravity fades. That is dissipates with distance, sometimes becoming a link so weak and tenuous it’s a wonder we continue to orbit each other at all. Etsell and I treated love like a state of being, a law of physics that would exist simply because it always had. I didn’t learn until much later that love is actually a choice. The sort of choice that we have to make every minute of every day, even when we don’t feel like it. Even when all we want is to be anywhere but where we find ourselves.

Because when home is a person, it will always be a moving target.

When I finished reading that part, I had to put the book down and let the words soak. Let them settle.

And when they had, I was convicted.

Not because I don’t choose to love my husband. But because there are days when I don’t show that choice to him. There are days I’m so wrapped up in my own thing that I neglect him altogether.

Thankfully, he’s a gracious man. A wonderful, amazing man.

He understands.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t work on getting better.

In different news, I have lots and lots of ARCs to giveaway, thanks to my awesome publisher! So I’d like to do a giveaway today! One random commenter will receive a copy of my debut novel. So comment away!

Let’s Talk: How do you keep the love alive in a marriage?

Nicole is one of my favorite authors, so I was very excited when she agreed to endorse my debut novel, Wildflowers from Winter. To read her endorsement, click on the link and scroll down.

Ugly Me and My Personal Crack

Posted on March 21, 2012March 21, 2012 by Katie Ganshert

Jeff Goins says we shouldn’t be afraid to write ugly.

His words resonate. Probably because in this crazy, beautiful online community it is so blasted easy to put up fronts. To over-censor. I know I’m guilty. Because writing our ugly side, sharing it with the world. That’s a scary thing.

But it’s also liberating.

So here we go….

“Would it be accurate to say you seek attention and approval?”

Um.

The question was asked by my social worker. We were going over the results of my psychological assessment.

Right about now, some of you might be thinking. Social worker? Psychological assessment?

Ryan and I are adopting. Part of adopting involves a home study, which is where the social worker comes into play. And part of that home study involved a 600 question (yep, you read that right) psychological assessment.

When she read that particular result, all I could do was laugh.

Because the day before, I was having a day.

These days don’t happen every day. They don’t even happen most days, thank the good Lord. But some days.

Some days, I struggle. Some days are ugly. Some days I crave approval.

Here’s the thing about me. When I’m having one of these days, approval is like crack. I want more, and more, and more until I’m a strung out mess. The best thing for me to do on these days is ban myself from Goodreads and any other potential review sites.

The best thing for me to do on these days is shine the light on somebody else. Not because I want them to return the favor. Not because I’m such an awesome, encouraging person. But because I need to get out of my own head. I need to remind myself that none of this is about me.

The day before our social worker read me that result, I was having that kind of a day.

So I emailed my good friend Wendy Paine Miller. I told her I was feeling desperate. It was a day filled with insecurity and doubt and neediness. I told her I couldn’t wait until Jesus returned so He could take all the ugliness out of me.

And Wendy responded in that very poignant Wendy-way of hers:

I think the coolest thing about faith, she said, is that He got rid of the gunk already for us. It’s embracing that–living in that. Ah, freedom.

I needed that reminder.

Because although I gave my life to Christ eleven years ago, embracing God’s grace is not a one and done thing. It’s a daily activity. A daily embracing. Something we need to remind ourselves every single morning when we open our eyes and face a new day.

The gunk is gone. We don’t have to let it control us anymore. We are a new creation and there is victory in Christ.

I love that truth.

I cling to that truth.

Especially when I’m having an ugly day.

Let’s Talk: Do you ever have ugly days? What do you do to fight them?

I’m posting over at Melissa Tagg’s blog today. If you want some very practical tips for marketing yourself and your books, hop on over!

I’m giving away a copy of my book on my Facebook Page. All you have to do is give me a Would You Rather question. The thread is pinned up on the top and the comments are highly entertaining.

Book Marketing 101

Posted on March 19, 2012March 19, 2012 by Katie Ganshert

A month and a half until my debut novel hits the shelves and my mind has shifted into marketing mode.

Buzz is on the brain.

In a post titled The Birds and the Bees of Marketing, popular blogger Jody Hedlund defined buzz as the chatter, the excitement, the hype that surrounds our book.

So how can I generate this buzz?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately.

Thankfully, I don’t have to carry the marketing load on my own. Not even close. I happen to have the best in-house marketer in the world. Plus, an amazing in-house publicist and an amazing sales team. These people are doing things I could never even begin to accomplish on my own. They are the epitome of awesome.

But still, I want to do my part. I want to do everything I can to help.

So I’ve been doing a lot of brainstorming. And I’m pretty excited about what’s on the horizon.

Will these ideas work?

Will people respond well?

Will they generate buzz?

Honestly, I have no idea.

But as I dive into the unknown, here’s the biggest, most important lesson I’m learning about marketing:

We can’t be afraid of failure.

Not every idea will work out. Some things will flop. And you know what? That’s okay.

Sure, public failure is embarrassing. Anytime I get a poor response (whether that be to a blog post or a Youtube video or a Facebook update or a contest or whatever), I feel stupid. I find myself second guessing the effort. Maybe even wishing I could take it back.

But here’s the thing.

We’ll never know unless we try.

I remember sitting in a workshop at last year’s ACFW conference, listening to Allen Arnold and Jim Rubart and Julie Gwinn. One of them, I can’t remember who, brought up the Single Ladies Devestation Youtube video posted by Carlos Whittaker. It had millions of hits.

And Allen or Jim or Julie said, “Do you know how many videos he posted before that?”

Moral of the story?

It wasn’t his first.

He’d posted plenty others that languished in obscurity. But he kept publishing videos until one of them went viral. He had no idea that one would become so popular.

All he could do was throw it out there and see.

This is what I’m learning.

We have to be willing to throw things out there. To take risks. To try. Some stuff won’t work out. Hey. No big deal. Shake it off and keep throwing until something sticks.

Let’s Talk: What lessons have you learned about buzz and marketing? What ideas have you tried?